Flushed (8 page)

The one she couldn’t see to unlock.

Because the porch light was broken. Smashed. Shattered.

“Isabelle?”

Damn her heart for leaping at the sound of his voice. She’d
told him to leave. Why hadn’t he gone? The man couldn’t be controlled. She
didn’t need that.

The keys felt foreign in her numbed fingers. The door…her
hand…the thoughts in her scattered brain. It all seemed very far away.

She wet her lips but couldn’t speak. Speaking might make it
real.

She heard him cover the porch steps in a single bound, felt
the boards vibrate beneath her feet as he landed, felt the welcome heat of him
at her back and then beside her.

With a shiver, Isabelle recovered herself. Her house, her
responsibility.

She stepped forward, more crunching, an uncomfortable
wetness in her sandal. She pushed the door open, rather, farther open. The
doorframe had splintered where it had been forced.

The house was unnaturally dark except for a light in the
direction of her bedroom.

“Let me, Isabelle,” Kim said.

She wouldn’t move back, but she was happy to let him push
past her. His feet crunched across the threshold and she followed. More
crunching marked her path as she headed for the floor lamp near the fireplace.
She switched the lamp on.

Oh.

Oh my.

Books on the floor. The bookcases’ glass doors hung open.
The coffee table had been pushed aside and the area rug beneath it ribboned
into a heap. Glass on the floor, blue glass, probably the vase that had been on
the coffee table. More glass where framed family photos had been swept off the
mantel. CDs spilled from broken jewel cases on the floor. Hats everywhere. Kim
moved cautiously through the house, Isabelle trailing him, turning on lights,
feeling the numbness begin to thaw, turning to anger.

More carnage in the dining room. The cushions in the sunroom
had been tossed, the area rugs plundered. Kitchen cabinets opened, more broken
glass. The glorious watermelon-colored tulips on the floor in a barbed puddle.

It was real.

She called 911 and the police arrived quickly, an overweight
black man and his redheaded female partner. They wanted to know whether
anything was missing. Her peace of mind. Her security. But that’s not what they
meant. All she could be sure of was the rainy-day cash she kept in a box on the
mantel in the living room. About five hundred dollars.

They took her statement, gave her a report number to give
her insurance agent, and left.

The wounds to her house tonight made the medicine cabinet
fiasco of the night before look like a mosquito bite. And even that minor wound
would not be as easily healed now—the cabinet hung crookedly on the wall, its
mirrored door shattered. Toiletries all over the floor. The top to the toilet
tank cracked.

No room untouched. No sanctuary. It burned her gut. She
needed to hurt something, but her house had been hurt enough. There was nothing
to strike that wouldn’t make her feel worse.

She hadn’t been so helpless since her parents split.

Kim found her broom in the mudroom by the back door and
started sweeping up glass in the kitchen without a word. Damn him. How could he
be so cool about this? How could he be so kind? Why wouldn’t he leave before
she needed him here?

“I’ll get it,” she said, looking in at him from the dining
room.

“No need,” he said, still sweeping.

“It’s my house.”

He paused and looked at her with those incredible ringed
eyes. “Yes,” he said softly, “I know.” He resumed sweeping.

Anger roiled within her, shaking her body, needing an
outlet. She slapped the wood molding of the archway between the living and
dining areas. It helped, but not enough. She slapped it again. Pressure built
between her temples. She began yelling, spewing every curse word she knew as
she slapped wood.

When she finally ran out of strength, Kim was watching her
from the kitchen doorway. He’d taken off the leather coat and rolled back the
blue shirt’s sleeves. He still held the broom.

“You’re not going to shush me? Hold me and tell me it’s
okay?” Her throat hurt, her voice hoarse, yet she spat the words at him in
challenge.

He shook his head. “I’m not an idiot,” he said. “Neither are
you.”

She stood there, stunned and blinking. He understood her
anger? Rather, he was okay with her feeling it? Screaming it? He wasn’t going
to insist she be demure and weak and weepy?

“Wow,” she said as something unknotted in her stomach. “That
felt better than yelling.”

“Glass of water?” he asked, mouth quirking as if he wanted
to smile but thought it might be too soon.

Honestly, a smile would be nice.

“I’d rather have another glass of Bionic Frog, if you’ve got
it.”

“Frog-free, I’m afraid. Sorry.” There. He grinned. Much
better.

As she made her way toward the kitchen and Kim, her sandal
came apart and tried to trip her. She stood on one foot to examine the damage.
Kim put himself beside her so she could hang on and steady herself. While she
was glad he hadn’t smothered her as she was losing her temper, she wished he’d
put an arm around her now.

Did that make her capricious? She had too much on her mind
tonight to worry about it.

A piece of the shattered porch light had wedged in the
sandal and sliced through the strap. It had also caused what seemed to be the
only cut she’d received in spite of there being glass in every room. It was
minor. “Crap,” she said. “I liked these shoes.”

“Well, they’re glass slippers now.”

She snorted. Yes, she was all over the place, but Kim Martin
was man enough to take care of himself. “Help me to the sofa, handsome prince?”

He did put his arm around her then and she leaned against
him and held on to him, warm and lean and solid, as she hopped to the sofa
while the beads of her dress’s hemline jumped and bumped against her legs. She
wondered what had happened to her shawl.

Steven would have picked her up and carried her, probably to
the bedroom. When blinded by love, she’d seen his sweeping gestures as
romantic. Now she realized he was just a controlling bastard. Hopping might be
awkward, but it was equal. It was also kind of fun, especially when Kim flopped
down beside her on the sofa, laughing.

Isabelle pulled her feet up off the glass-strewn floor and
laid them across Kim’s lap. “Would you mind?” she asked, looking pointedly at
her shoes.

“The traditional story has the prince putting them on your
feet, I believe,” Kim said, though he draped his arm over her legs to prevent
them sliding off his lap. Mmm. Silk sleeve against her bare skin.

She wriggled her toes. “Your point?”

He grinned. “No point.” He worked the buckle of the ruined
shoe first, then the other. Then he turned her foot to examine the cut.
Isabelle became acutely aware of the heat of his legs beneath hers. His
calloused fingers on her foot were only making it worse.

“First-aid supplies?” he asked.

“As if I could find anything in the bathroom at the moment,”
she said. “Besides, it’s not bad.”

“No,” he agreed. He shifted, rolling to one hip to dig in
his trouser pocket, emerging with a clean handkerchief, and in a gesture
Isabelle hadn’t seen since she was a child showing a boo-boo to her father, Kim
gently swabbed the remaining blood from her foot.

Maybe it was the shifting friction of his rough hands on her
sensitive feet. Maybe it was the look of concentration on his expressive face.
Maybe it was the overwhelming niceness of having such intimate attention after
denying herself for so long. But whatever it was, Isabelle’s body responded in
a way that had nothing to do with childhood.

Oh my.

Kim’s world was getting smaller, from the enormity of a
trashed house representing Isabelle’s loss down to the tiny evidence of it on
her soft skin. That she’d allowed him to stay with her through such a personal
moment made him feel closer to her than he probably should given her recent
insistence he was a good-for-nothing cheating bastard just like her ex.

Too late. For this moment at least, his world had narrowed
down to a bubble just big enough for the two of them. Unless she pulled her
feet away from him and physically moved away, he was not going to be able to
stop touching her, to keep from doing whatever he could to hold on to the
connection between them.

Her bare legs lay across his lap. There seemed to be a lot
of leg considering how much shorter she was than him. Her dress had hiked
farther up her thigh, giving him more to admire. More to touch, and damn if his
hand wasn’t sliding along her shin, his fingers trailing her calf. A
quarter-inch-long indentation on her right knee suggested a years-old injury.
He touched it. Beads at the hem of her dress trembled on her thigh. He stilled
one with his finger, so absorbed in the creamy softness of her, the warming
scent of her, he forgot he hadn’t been invited to lose himself in her.

So it wasn’t too surprising to feel Isabelle’s hand on his
jaw, forcibly turning his gaze from the juncture of her thighs. If ever he were
courting a slap…

Her kiss, however, was a surprise. An unexpected move, an
unplanned fall—a moment of hanging in space before gravity could remind him he
had options and an urgent need to exercise them lest a jarring impact spell the
end of his climb.

His near hand found her wild curls. He cupped her elegant
neck and kissed her like he’d wanted to all night, hot and reckless and not
entirely sane—a man on the brink. She pulled herself closer, farther onto his
lap. He spread his far hand to keep her from sliding off and away, and his
fingers became trapped beneath the hem of her dress.

“Oh my,” she said hoarsely, her lips parted and moist, her
face flushed. She pushed her fingers through his hair and drew him to her for
another kiss.

Strong Isabelle in his arms. Warm Isabelle on his lap. He
couldn’t think. He could only act. A hand at the small of her back, a shift of
his weight and he had her beneath him on the sofa. She never missed a beat, her
hands sliding across his chest, stroking his arms, kissing him, nipping him,
devouring him.

Lioness. Prey. Circle of life. All was as it should be.

He toed off his shoes, only too aware of how heavily he
pinned her legs with his weight while he did it. From the way her fingers
restlessly searched for a way into the back pockets of his dress trousers, he
guessed she didn’t mind.

Last night she’d tasted of herb, of leaf, of spice. Tonight
she tasted of heat-piled thunderheads and scorched grass and she smelled of
restless water—wild and wide open, unpredictable and dangerous.

The view made even pausing to catch his breath worthwhile.
Isabelle Caine had curves to make the Colorado River jealous and if her dress
slid any higher, he would soon be seeing class three conditions. He freed his
hand from the temptation to make his run too soon.

She seemed to have no such hesitation, pulling his
shirttails free and making short work of his buttons. She sat up beneath him
and her mouth met his chest as if she’d been wanting to do just this.

“Isabelle.” He caught her against him, her head cradled in
his palm. She kissed and bit and licked, threatening to melt his chest hair
with the heat of her mouth. Her hands were between them and seemed to be
finding their way ever lower. She made deep, growling noises.

Kim’s eyes had closed, unable to take the crush from one
more sense. His mouth hung open. He continued moaning her name into her hair,
against her scalp, rubbing his face into her soft curls. Scenting her.

He found her thigh again, moving beneath him, pulsing in an
ancient rhythm as Isabelle pressed her heels into the sofa cushion and her hips
against his.

His hands were full, one supporting her head and neck while
the other explored her voluptuous rear and the sensuous satin encasing it. Her
leg shifted, hooking around his calf while her fingers finally solved the
mystery of his belt buckle.

She might be in a hurry, but Kim guessed it could take all
night to satisfy her. Maybe longer. Probably longer.

He couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing.

He couldn’t think, period.

Which made it that much harder to understand what it meant
when Isabelle stiffened in his arms, her eyes trained somewhere beyond his
shoulder. Nearly impossible to figure out why when her mouth opened, it wasn’t
his name on her lips.

“Charlie?”

“Charlie?” Isabelle had never seen that look on Charlie’s
face. Of course, he could easily say the same of her.

But he was the one unexpected and unannounced. And it was
her house.

Oh.

No wonder he looked shocked.

Her house.

She’d forgotten.

How could she have forgotten?

Kim smoothed her dress down over her hip, which of course
explained it. And she hated to see Kim button his shirt, but their moment had
passed and reality had returned. Besides, his fine, lean chest sported
intriguing red marks that tattled on her.

Well, who wouldn’t get carried away?

She stayed where she until Kim was buckled and tucked and
more or less composed.

Her brother wore his Dallas Stars nylon jacket over
sweatpants and the most faded blue polo shirt ever to hold its stitches. His
old college backpack slid off his shoulder to the floor just inside the front
door. He opened his arms wide in a gesture that took in the wrecked room. “If
this was foreplay, Isabelle, never, ever tell me, okay?”

Isabelle snorted. “Pervert.” Leave it to Charlie to break
the tension.

“What happened?” Charlie asked.

Kim glanced at his watch before moving back to give her some
room. It was after midnight. She sat up and pivoted so she could sit normally
on the sofa, but Kim reached across her, slipped his hand behind her knees and
lifted. “Feet,” he warned.

Oh. Glass.

“Thank you,” she said, adjusting so she sat with her feet
tucked up beside her.

Kim pulled on his own shoes before standing and offering
Charlie his hand. “Hi, Charlie,” he said. “Hadn’t expected to see you tonight.”

Charlie shook it. “Ken, right?”

“It’s Kim. Kim Martin. There’s been a break-in.”

A dozen rude and/or demeaning comebacks had to be dancing on
her brother’s tongue, to judge by the look he gave Kim. But he didn’t unleash a
single one of his caustic gems. Isabelle wondered whether it was special
consideration for the shocking condition of her house or if Charlie had another
reason for withholding at least a juvenile, “Duh!”

Kim likely didn’t realize the significance. He looked back
at Isabelle. “Why don’t I take care of some more of this glass?” She watched
him crunch his way back into the kitchen for the broom. The sofa felt empty.

“So you guys really have been dating?” Charlie asked her.

“We’re not dating,” she said, still feeling adrift.

“A modern relationship? I’m impressed. I didn’t think you
had it in you.”

She stuck out her tongue.

Charlie sat beside her on the sofa. “So tell me what
happened. Is anything missing?”

“Maybe some cash. I’m not sure how much I had in the pot,”
she said. It was half a question, as her brother was welcome to the cash pot
anytime he needed it, and he’d been laid off his job a little over a month
earlier. He might have depleted the cache long before the break-in.

“Six-seventy,” Charlie said. He grinned. “Hey, somebody’s
gotta keep track.”

She smacked his shoulder, then leaned against it. He put his
arm around her. It was a different kind of comfort than she’d been pursuing
with Kim. But now that her hormones weren’t in control, she decided it was
better comfort. Deeper comfort.

It was family.

“All my hats,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Makes me so mad.”

“Yeah.”

She gave up then and let her brother hold her in silence for
a while. She heard the sounds of Kim sweeping elsewhere in the house and
wondered why he hadn’t left. Maybe he didn’t realize she’d regained her senses.
How crazy would she have been to have sex on her sofa with a near-stranger in
the midst of her violated home? In the heat of the moment, it hadn’t been
crazy. But she’d since seen it through Charlie’s eyes—Charlie, whose fantasies
seemed to include sex in the store’s bedding department to hear Gina tell it.
If it could give Charlie pause, it must be shocking indeed.

Which brought Isabelle around to wondering. “Charlie? Why
are you here?” she asked against his collar.

He chuckled, rubbing her shoulder. “Why are any of us here?”

“You have your backpack,” she said.

“Oh, that.”

“Something happen with Gina?” She pushed away from him to
sit up, and her folded-back legs told her they were going to need stretching
soon.

“We had a fight,” Charlie said. “I was hoping to bunk here
for a little while.”

“Of course. Well, if you still want to.” She indicated the
mess around them.

“I called earlier,” he said. “I guess you were out. Your
cell was off. I finally just came over.”

“Date.”

His eyebrows went up. “With another guy?”

“No,” she said, then realized what he’d meant. “It’s
complicated.”

He grinned. “Didn’t look complicated from where I was
standing.”

She smacked him again. “And where were you today when I was
calling and calling and calling?”

“Let’s see. That would be fighting and begging and packing.”

“Ouch. Sorry, Charlie.”

He shrugged. “I’ll hang here, give Gina time to chill. It’ll
be fine.”

She gave his hand a squeeze.

Maybe tomorrow she’d have the energy to ask what he and Gina
were fighting about. But not now. Being interrupted by Charlie—being shaken
from the intense hunger Kim Martin inspired—was a rude return to the
overwhelming chaos of her evening. Every hat on the floor, every photo in a
shattered frame, accused her for forgetting.

She felt flattened by the weight of it.

Though now that she looked, Kim seemed to have picked up the
stuff on the floor in the dining room. She wondered where he went.

“Kim?” she called.

“Yes?” He leaned so his head appeared in the kitchen
doorway. The blue shirt, the blue eyes—even two rooms away, Isabelle caught her
breath at the sight of him. She’d called him drool-worthy. He was, but he’d
also been waiting in the kitchen while she had a moment with her brother.
Drool-worthy sold him short. Unfortunately, her vocabulary wasn’t up to
anything better tonight.

While she was momentarily paralyzed by his wonderfulness, he
came into the living room, standing beside the sofa rather than make a crowd on
it.

She turned to her brother. “Charlie? Would you please bring
me some shoes so I can see Kim out?”

Both men looked surprised, but Charlie got up. “Fetching
your slippers, Mum,” he said and goose-stepped into her bedroom.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Isabelle winced.

“I didn’t get this part of the house swept,” Kim said.

Because he hadn’t wanted to spy on her, she mentally
finished for him. She reached for his hand and took just his fingers. “Thank
you,” she said. “I’m glad you were here.”

“As am I.” He brushed her cheek with the hand she wasn’t
holding. The touch of his calloused fingertips made her shiver.

“If y’all need a moment, can you at least let me get to the
kitchen first?” Seeing Charlie triggered a fresh rash of embarrassment that she
had been seeking comfort from Kim, the man she’d made such a point of pushing
away—but only, it seemed, until she’d needed the shelter of his arms.

Any port in a storm.

Liar.

They were exceptional arms, attached to the first man ever
to weather a full-out demonstration of temper without flinching. Even her
college boyfriend would have fled as soon as she raised her voice, and she’d
once thought Daniel the love of her life.

Charlie offered her a pair of pink terrycloth scuffs she’d
bought at a drug store on vacation years ago when desperate for something to
wear to the hotel pool. He couldn’t have made a frumpier choice if he’d tried.

Thanks a lot, Charlie.

She reached for them, but Kim said, “That’s no good,
Charlie. She needs something to protect her from the glass. Something that
won’t leave so much of her foot exposed.”

Good thing someone was thinking. She sure wasn’t. “Back of
the cherry armoire, Charlie,” she said, hoping he’d hurry. She needed her feet
back on the ground, and not just because her legs were starting to cramp.

Charlie rolled his eyes and returned to the bedroom.

Kim tugged at their still-joined hands. “Let’s talk,” he
said. “Put your feet on mine.” He stood directly in front of her and looked
from his feet to hers then to her face, clearly repeating his invitation.

If she did it, they might be eye to eye, or at least closer
than ever before. She’d be in his arms again. If they moved, they’d have to
move together.

But they weren’t dating. They weren’t. She couldn’t remember
why, exactly. Not much was working in her brain, but she knew there was a
reason and a good one. It would come to her.

He had to leave—now. She couldn’t trust herself. If she put
her arms around him again, she might not let go until morning.

Charlie rescued her with sneakers. She thanked her brother
and pulled on the ugly shoes. She and Kim crunched outside to the porch. The
splintered doorjamb was going to have to be the first thing fixed if she was
going to feel safe. She didn’t even want to think about how she’d be spending
her day tomorrow.

Kim put his coat around her shoulders while they stood on
her dark porch. The smell of leather did more to warm her than the coat itself.
His hands rested on her hips and his breath moved her hair as he said, “Stay at
my place tonight.”

Oh, it was tempting. Forget the house, her brother, herself.
Spend the night with the man whose every kiss promised it’d be a night she’d
never forget. How good a reason could she really have for saying no?

The light spilling out around her busted front door was a
pretty good one. Crap.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Charlie is here.”

“Should I be jealous?” She heard the smile in Kim’s voice,
making it easier to remember the other reason she shouldn’t say yes to a
good-looking man, a man pawed by women and approached by ex-girlfriends. Any
man this smooth and charming would be utterly confident she wouldn’t be the one
straying. It was a pattern she knew all too well.

“Of course not,” she said. Three words. She turned her
shoulders so his jacket slid free, forcing him to let go of her to catch it.
She just needed three more. She forced them from her throat.

“We’re not dating.”

* * * * *

Not dating.

Kim pulled into his assigned space beneath the mid-rise
condo development and yanked on the Jeep’s parking brake.

She could smile. Flirt. Completely lose her composure in
anger. Isabelle Caine could kiss him and touch him as if she were seeking a way
inside his skin—a quest in which she seemed to be succeeding—and yet…

They weren’t dating. For a guy with plans to leave town, it
sure bothered him a lot.

She wanted him. He was pretty sure about that. Well, he’d
had moments of being sure about that. No question they’d be great in bed
together. Outstanding. And they’d seemed well on their way to finding out.

He took the stairs from the basement garage to the lobby of
his building, the concrete walls and industrial light fixtures made it seem
like another garage level, albeit filled with funky, curving furniture rather
than cars. He saluted the night security guard and continued up the stairs to
his eighth-floor loft.

He swiped his security card and burst out the stairwell door
into his concrete breezeway, breathing hard. That was better. Running stairs
might not bring the same clarity as a day on the rock face, but it helped. He
could now see it might have been a bad idea to bed Isabelle the same night her
house had been turned inside out. The same vulnerability that made him want to
protect her might make her even more volatile than she’d been earlier tonight.
What if she woke up hating him?

And he hadn’t exactly gotten around to telling her about
Austin, had he?

She was right. They weren’t dating.

Damn.

At sunrise, Kim gave up trying to sleep and drove to Wall
Werx. He used his key, locked the door behind him, and headed straight through
the Big Top for the boulder garden. He wanted sweat and adrenaline, not
altitude. Besides, he didn’t have a spot.

The “garden” was actually one long, narrow room with wall
partitions of up to sixteen feet high beneath the soaring, fifty-foot roof.
Many wall partitions were two-sided, allowing climbers to crest and then downclimb
without having to retrace a route, useful for building skills they’d need on
actual rock.

Endurance and hand strength were big on actual rock. But
even bigger was versatility—the ability to change the plan, change directions,
improvise at a moment’s notice. A good climber understood the rock’s mood and
adapted.

And when he failed, he learned to be a good jumper.

Here in the garden, the floor was covered with shredded
rubber tires Damon got from the dump. The room smelled like old Pontiacs, but
every jump and fall was cushioned.

Kim started at Slabtastic, a bulgy man-made island with the
lowest angle climbs in the gym. He moved with feet and right hand only, all the
way around. Then left hand only. Then in the other direction. His body warmed
with the motion.

Isabelle could do this, he thought. No heights involved
whatsoever. He could imagine her laughing at the lingo as he urged her to find
holds in pockets and cracks and to hang on to bulges. Actually no, he couldn’t.
Isabelle had more class than that. He couldn’t even imagine her wearing shorts,
though after having run his hand the full length of her leg, he knew how she’d
look.

Damn fine, that’s how.

Enough of that.

He toweled off and rechalked. He’d flash the Knife next, a
fourteen-foot, two-sided wall with a graceless apex, just a meeting of two
walls creating an knife-like edge.

If he were Damon and Wall Werx were his, Kim would dump real
money into upgrading the garden. The Big Top might be impressive to new
climbers, but serious climbers spent most of their time in here, drilling,
experimenting and honing skills. It should be larger, relative to the entire
gym. There should be a greater variety of problems. It should be the place for
climbers to train in the relatively flat terrain of the Dallas–Fort Worth
Metroplex when they were between trips to real rock.