If You Dare (15 page)

He stood and started undressing while she watched. And damn if a single look didn’t turn him on as much as if she had walked over touched him.

 
He needed to think about anything other than sex.
 

“So what about French maid next time? I always wanted to do that tickle thing with a feather duster.”

“Tickle thing?” She almost sounded sincere in her question. He loved that mock innocence, the way she just had fun with sex, with everything.
 

He finished undressing and climbed under the covers. Silk sheets were definitely well worth the investment. They were cool and soft against his bare skin and she had on way too many clothes. He didn’t have a feather duster, but he could certainly improvise.

Cordelia felt his hands on either side of her shoulders and couldn’t help the laughter that seemed to bubble out of her when he was around. “What’s this?”

He didn’t answer right away just moved so his body covered hers, and she had to say for the first time in her life she honestly thought her favorite pajamas were quite possibly the sexiest clothes on earth.

And she’d been worried about him seeing them? Stupid, stupid girl.

The fact that she was so completely covered and that he was naked, laying on top of her made her feel an anticipation beyond simple sex.

Of course none of their sex had been simple. Maybe that was the true cause of the anticipation.

She felt his hand slip under her shirt, and in a matter of seconds it was gone. In even less time, he flung her pants across the room.
 

And then he was looking down into her eyes making her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world simply by the way his eyes met hers.

“I planned on taking this slow.” His voice was ragged. “I just can’t seem to take things slow with you.”

And then he was slipping a condom on in record time before plunging deep inside her, taking her to the edge in seconds. Her orgasm left her breathless and shaken, and when he came soon afterwards, neither said a word for the longest time.

Cordelia didn’t know why he wasn’t talking. But she knew why she wasn’t. What could she possibly say? He’d turned her into an instant orgasm machine. She certainly wasn’t going to complain.
 

But what was he thinking?

The brush of his finger tips on her arm left her shivery, but not with need. She didn’t know what she felt. Incredible. Awakened. Alive.

They all fit.

“I’m sorry.”

She almost coughed at his apology. “Sorry?”

His fingers ran up and down her side leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake. “I’m thinking condom placement isn’t exactly foreplay.”

He thought she didn’t like it? “I’m thinking this whole day was foreplay, Joe. If you hadn’t gotten right down to business, I’d have jumped you.”

“You are something else.” His laughter laced words made her smile.

“As long as we understand each other.”

“Oh we definitely understand each other.”

Not for the first time, Cordelia heard his acceptance of her charade and felt guilt. He had no clue who she really was. But did it really matter? This wasn’t real.

But dammit, it felt real.
 

And when he pulled her right up next to his body, where she fit perfectly curled under his arm, her back to his chest, she knew she’d made a serious mistake.

It might not be real, but somehow, her heart had missed that message.

Cordelia looked down at the goop covering her legs and then looked over at the reason for this insanity. Joe’s sister was a lunatic! She actually seemed to enjoy leg waxing.
 

Talk about sadistic.

How had she let Taylor convince her that waxing was an essential element of makeover miracles? She was living proof waxing wasn’t necessary.

But now here she was…OUCH!

“Taylor, why are we here again?”

Across the room Joe’s sister looked at her and grinned. She looked just like her brother when she grinned like that. “Quit whining, Vegas. Who would’ve thought you’d be such a baby about a little thing like waxing.”

Vegas. The first thing Taylor had said this morning was she needed a new name. Cordelia was too much of a mouthful and Del was reserved for family. So Vegas it was, at least for now.

The cosmetician pulled another strip of hair off her leg and Cordelia winced again. “It’s not a little thing, and I’m not whining.”

Taylor didn’t bother to answer, just buried her nose deeper into some gossip magazine.
 

“You know your brother’s not going to like this.”

Taylor looked up from the magazine. “As if he’ll ever even know.”

“Oh, he’ll know.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow in perfect imitation of her brother. “He might know about you, but I doubt it. However,” she held open a page for Cordelia to see, “This, he’ll definitely notice. What do you think? Big city enough?”

Cordelia closed her eyes and shook her head at the picture. Why in the world she’d thought this was a good idea? “No, I don’t really think magenta hair is the color for you.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “You’re so literal! I’m just joking. I want big city, but I’m not that brave. Besides my skin’s too pink to go and put something like that on my hair.”

Cordelia said a silent prayer of thanks. Somehow she didn’t think Joe would forgive her if she brought home a purple haired Taylor.

“You know, I knew I wanted to meet you right away. But after Joe took you away for the weekend, it sealed the deal.”

Ah-ha. Joe talk. Good.

Cordelia figured she could tell herself she was here because Taylor reminded her so much of herself. But the reality was she wanted to know more about Joe. No sense lying to herself about that.

“Why’s that?”

They’d moved from waxing hell to manicure and pedicure heaven and Taylor shrugged as the nail technician applied the first coat of I’m Not Really a Waitress red to her nails. “Oh, I was just intrigued that anyone could drag my brother away in the midst of crisis.”

“Crisis?”

“You know, me being here, breaking off the wedding. Planning to move. Joe usually likes to be in charge, but he just told me to stay put and swept you away to wherever you two went. And when he came back, he was completely on another planet. Very unusual.”

Cordelia couldn’t suppress the warmth that radiated through her body at the thought that Joe chose her over a family crisis, small as it was. That he was different when he came home. “So you were supposed to marry…”

“But Joe Don, that’s my ex-fiancé’s name, but we call him J.D., well, he refused to even consider moving. He’s got some wild plan to open radiator shops all over Oklahoma. Radiator shops! He’s finishing up his business degree at OU and he wants to keep on doing what he’s always done.”

“And you don’t like radiators?”

Taylor sent her a look that spoke volumes; Cordelia thought she understood, but she was completely wrong.

“Shoot no. I love radiators. Actually I love everything about cars. I’ll talk about gaskets, pistons, headers, valves, whatever any day of the week. I just don’t want to do it in Oklahoma.”

“But you love cars?”

Taylor nodded. “Heck yeah. There’s nothing sexier than cars. Nothing more exciting.”

“And you love J.D.?”

Taylor looked down at her newly polished nails. “Sure, I guess. At least sometimes. I mean, he’s my one and only. We’ve always been together. Even when we were little. I told my entire kindergarten class I was going to marry him.”

Wow. Cordelia wasn’t sure what to say now. She’d easily slipped into her normal teacher role. Ready to listen, counsel. But Taylor wasn’t one of her students.
 

“So you’re not necessarily here to stay. You might just be here to live a little.”

“Uh-uh.” Taylor wiggled her now red toenails in Cordelia’s direction. “I’m here to live a lot.”

Poor Joe. He was so going to die when he realized his sister was serious.

Hopefully he didn’t blame her for what ever happened next.

Taylor made her debut as a big city woman at lunch that day.
 

Cordelia couldn’t believe the change. She shouldn’t have been surprised at how artificial changes made such a big difference, but she was. Taylor’s once tawny hair now looked more like spun honey, just a little darker than Joe’s. She still wore the jeans and white tee shirt, but even they seemed to fit differently.

And everyone they passed noticed.

It felt good to be out in public, feeling the admiring glances from strange men, talking girl talk.

Taylor insisted on treating her to lunch, so they’d settled on Mexican.
 

Cordelia opened her menu and wondered how she could segue the conversation to Joe. But Taylor beat her to it.

“You know, I told you how I like cars, but I didn’t tell you why.”

Cordelia chose a salad. “So why do you love cars?”

“Everyone in my family loves cars. Even Joe, but he tries to forget it. Our daddy owns a car shop in Daryl, and we all pretty much cut our teeth on tires.

“Joe once restored a La Mans to die for, but when he left, he gave it to me. I love that car. And let me tell you, car talk is sexy. Working on cars is sexy. J.D. goes crazy when I work in Daddy’s shop. He says it’s something about the grease.”

An instant flash of heat branded its way through Cordelia at the thought of Joe walking in on her covered in grease, fixing a car. But then she remembered she didn’t even know how to change a tire. Well shoot!

“And Joe came out here and never looked back, but I bet you anything he still remembers.”

Cordelia didn’t figure there was much Joe Sterling forgot.
 

“Joe said something about debutants the other night.”

Okay so it didn’t have much to do with cars, but Cordelia still didn’t know why Taylor thought it was so funny. At least not right away.

“Poor Joe and his debutants. Actually my older brothers had the worst luck with the rich girls in Daryl. I don’t think I’m supposed to know this, but Joe was something of a bad boy. And those girls just loved Joe. But not really. You know. They liked his car, they liked his body.”

Cordelia definitely understood that.

“But Joe’s mental about money. And it’s pretty weird. My grandmother is rich, like sickening rich. She’s rolling in oil money. Momma gave up all that when she married Daddy. But her mother never let her forget it.”

Cordelia wondered if she should stop Taylor or let her go on. For some reason, this felt almost like eaves dropping. Like she was a grade A sneak.

But she wanted to know. And Taylor wanted to talk.

“But it doesn’t even matter now because my parents might not be mansion living these days, but they’re not hurting. And Joe still hates Oklahoma. He doesn’t even like Oklahoma City, and that’s practically a sin!”

Cordelia couldn’t help but laugh. “But you do like it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Taylor shrugged. “But it’s not like here. I love this.” She waved her hands around the room. “Look at that guy sitting over there by the waterfall. He’s just dreamy. I feel like I’m in the middle of a movie or something.”

Cordelia turned her head to see who Taylor could be talking about. And when she looked at the waterfall she was a little awestruck herself. They were eating next to an indoor waterfall!

And then she saw Taylor’s dreamy vision.
 

“Oh wow! I know him.”

Taylor lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “You do?”

Cordelia couldn’t believe it. How odd was this? “Yeah. Hold on just a second and I’ll introduce you two.”

A few seconds later she walked back across the restaurant followed by two handsome men who were absolutely interested in meeting the sexy woman sitting alone at the table. And, Cordelia told herself, she owed it to Taylor to introduce her. Besides, Joe couldn’t possibly get upset over this.

They reached the table and Cordelia made the introductions. “Taylor, meet one of your brother’s very good friends, Keith Lawrence. He coaches football at a local high school.”

Cordelia sat back and watched Taylor blossom as Keith shook her hand and introduced one of his fellow coaches.

It didn’t take a genius to see that Keith was quite interested in getting to know his good friend’s little sister. And Taylor was certainly open to that prospect.

Cordelia fought the niggling sense of unease. Joe couldn’t get upset with her. Taylor was here for a number of reasons, but it seemed to her that spreading her wings a little was top priority. At least Joe knew Keith.

And then she saw the way Taylor looked up at the coach with that big-eyed wonder, and she saw the way Keith looked at Taylor…

Oh man. Joe was so going to kill her.

Joe looked at his sister and frowned. She’d cut her hair in some new style and changed its color too. He hadn’t noticed when he’d first come in, but now that he’d changed and was gathering the groceries he’d bought to make supper for Cordelia, he could definitely tell.

“New hair?”

Taylor turned away from the computer where she was instant messaging someone and beamed up at him. “Yep. Do you like?”

Joe took a second to answer. He could tell her the truth, hell no, you look like you belong here, or he could lie.

“Yeah. It looks good. Where’d you say you put the wine?”

Taylor pointed toward the kitchen. “In your wine rack, dummy. You going to Cordelia’s?”

Joe walked in to the kitchen and sure enough there the wine was. “Yeah, how come?”

He was settling the avocados into the bag when his sister answered. “Oh, I figured I might stop by for a second.”

“Uh…” Joe didn’t know what to say. The last thing in the world he wanted was Taylor’s company, but…

She walked into the kitchen laughing. “I was joking you big goofball. Like you want me hanging around while you seduce Vegas.”

What? “Vegas?”

Taylor hopped up on the kitchen counter and Joe wondered when shirts that looked like bras and jeans that hung around the pelvic region had become fashionable. “Yeah. We came to an understanding today. Cordelia is just too much name. I’m calling her Vegas.”