Just Kiss Me (9 page)

“I’ll wait for you outside,” he said as he stood.

From within the three mirrors, three Viviens lifted their gazes from the hem of her dress. Her green eyes sought his image over her shoulder. “I’ll hurry,” she said.

One Vivien was bad enough. Three Viviens were two too many. She was aggravating and annoying and so outrageously beautiful, she turned him off and on like he was a light switch. He tossed the magazine on the chair and walked by rows of designer clothes hanging from racks bolted to the old brick walls. He moved out the glass doors and into the heat and humidity of the oldest part of the Holy City. Traffic congested the corner of King and Broad, adding a layer of exhaust to the hot, muggy air. He’d rather choke on soupy fumes than watch Vivien grab her behind again.

He shoved a shoulder into the side of the building and pulled his cell phone and sunglasses from his breast pocket. He had a real life and a real job and didn’t have time to babysit a spoiled actress or read beach-hair tips from a fashion magazine. He answered e-mails and text messages from suppliers and clients and checked to make sure his request for final approval on a renovation in the French Quarter was on the Board of Architectural Review’s agenda.

After ten minutes, Vivien had yet to appear and he checked on some beat-up tech stocks while he waited. Trading was no longer his full-time job, but he did keep a peripheral eye on the market. At the height of his trading days in New York, he’d invested in news-driven stocks and the sectors in play. These days he managed the limited partnership and hedge fund he’d created with his mother and brother several years ago. The fund was just one piece of their family’s investment portfolio, and he made sure it made more money than it lost. Now that banking and finance wasn’t his full-time job, he could relax and even enjoy playing the market. Now that it wasn’t his job, he could focus on what he really loved. The job he would have gravitated toward naturally, if he’d ever been given the choice.

For as long as he could recall, he’d had an intense interest in the warm grains and smooth textures of exotic woods. He’d loved to envision different and unusual uses for different and unusual hardwoods. He’d always had a natural vision for spatial design, even before he’d known there was such a thing.

The front door to Berlin’s finally swung open and Vivien strolled outside, once again wearing her jeans and T-shirt and his Clemson baseball hat. She carried her red purse but nothing else.

“Where’s your dress?” he asked. She’d tried on enough to pick at least one.

“It’s being altered right now.” She dug in her purse and pulled out her sunglasses. “We need to come back in an hour.”

“What?”

“Since the ladies were sweet enough to have their seamstress get to work on the hem right away”—she paused and shoved her big sun-glasses on her face—“the least I could do was tell them we’d wait.”

“We?” He felt the corner of his eye twitch.

“Oh.” She glanced around at the traffic, both vehicle and pedestrians, then looked up at him through the dark lenses. “Am I keeping you from something?” she asked as if he just naturally had all day to wait on her.

He’d like to leave her stranded, but of course he hadn’t been raised to abandon women. “What do you propose
we
do for an hour?”

“I need to go to Bits of Lace.” She looked behind her as if she expected someone to jump out at her. “The ladies in Berlin’s said it’s down the street.”

He was sorry he’d asked. “The underwear store?”

She nodded and the shadow from the baseball cap’s bill slid across the seam of pink lips. “I think I should call and tell them I’m coming in.” Once more she dug in her purse and this time pulled out her cellphone. “I’ll have to Google them to get the number.”

“Why?” he asked, suspicious of her motives. His mother had called Berlin’s and they’d put together an entire rack of clothes just for her. He wasn’t about to watch her try on a trunkload of panties for an hour. From behind his sunglasses, he let his gaze slide to her lips. Damn. He felt like a light switch again, and it didn’t seem to matter that he didn’t want to get turned on.

“The store should probably have warning in case they want to get security in place first.”

He looked up into her eyes. The first flicker of desire was snubbed out. Thank God. “I don’t think anyone will recognize you.” If he needed any more proof that she was full of herself, calling a small underwear store and wanting security was it. “Hell, princess, I hardly recognize you and I’ve known you for years.”

Worry wrinkled her brow. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure you’re being paranoid.” He took a few steps down King toward the underwear store but stopped when she didn’t follow. “Isn’t it this way?” He waved in the general direction of Bits of Lace. There was a sports pub near the store and he could grab a beer while he waited.

“We can’t walk.”

“It’s only about four or five blocks.”

“If things get crazy, your car will be too far away.”

Crazy? It was possible that someone might recognize her, but he seriously doubted people would go crazy. Then he thought of her crazy
Raffle
fans. They were weird. “We’ll drive,” he said, and changed direction toward his truck, even though he did think her pampered ass was overreacting. He doubted her fans knew she was in Charleston, and it was unlikely that someone dressed in some goofy leather and chain-mail costume would pop up in an underwear store.

Henry drove the few blocks and found a parking space across the street from Bits of Lace. While Vivien shopped for bras, he relaxed at the King Street Grille next door. He picked a table near the front, and at that time of day, the place was empty except for three couples sitting at different tables and a group of young guys at the bar. ESPN offered commentary on the Rangers/Cubs game on the television overhead, and he kicked back and looked at the menu. He couldn’t decide between pork sliders or nachos and ordered both along with a bottle of Palmetto porter. After spending the past hour in a women’s clothing store, sitting on fussy furniture, and flipping thorough chick magazines, watching sports and drinking dark beer felt like coming home after an aggravating trip for an annoying employer. His shoulders relaxed and tension drained from his joints. Sitting in the sports bar instead of standing in a lingerie boutique while Vivien looked at panties felt like a reprieve from a firing squad. From the smart-mouthed girl who’d grown into a beautiful woman, and the troubling reaction that he hadn’t expected and didn’t want.

The waitress delivered his beer and he took a drink of the stout porter. Instead of sitting in a pub, still troubled by his physical reaction to Vivien, he should be at his shop, working on the cherrywood island or drafting a bid for the new medical complex in North Charleston. No matter the brand of little French blazers his mother had always dressed him in as a child, no matter the exclusive boarding schools or Princeton degree, working with wood was in his DNA. Like his father, Henry loved the smell and touch of wood beneath his hands. Even as a kid, he’d loved crafting something from his imagination.

He sucked foam from the corner of his mouth and set the glass on the table.

Henry had always done what had been expected of him. Except for when what was expected had almost killed him. He’d walked away from his white-collar career and never been happier. His mother considered his custom millwork a waste of his education. She didn’t see a journeyman as a proper job for a Whitley-Shuler, and he wasn’t at all surprised that she’d volunteered him to drive Vivien around as if he had nothing better to do. Nor was he surprised that Vivien was pushing and testing his patience just like when she’d been a kid.

So when Vivien walked through the sports pub’s doors fifteen minutes after he’d ordered a beer, he had to admit that he was surprised. He’d expected her to take at least another hour just to annoy him.

“I shopped as quick as possible,” she said, almost breathless, as if she’d run from one rack of bras to the next. She set her bag and purse in the chair across from him. “I don’t think I’ve ever shopped that quick.”

Now she was quick. When it didn’t matter. When they still had half an hour to kill before they returned to Berlin’s, and he was kicked back with a beer and some of his favorite bar food. He raised a hand and got the waitress’s attention. “What can I order for you to drink?” he asked as she slid into the chair next to him.

“I’d love a mojito.” She left her sunglasses on her face like she was a member of the CIA. “Thank you.”

He gave the waitress Vivien’s drink order and asked for a second plate. “How’d it go? Any of your fans jump out from behind shelves of panties and ask for an autograph?”

She laughed and again he was reminded of sunshine and honey. Of whiskey in a teacup that warmed a man up from the inside out. “No. I worried about nothing.” She shook her head and the sunlight pouring in through the large windows slid across her smooth cheek. Her dark hair stuck out the back of the baseball cap and brushed the back of her T-shirt. “Thank goodness.”

“You’re too uptight.” She was all smooth skin and shiny hair and working him like a light switch again.

“Me?” Her mouth dropped and she sucked in a shocked breath. “You were born uptight, Henry.”

She was probably right about that, but he wasn’t ever going to admit it. Vivien’s drink and extra plate arrived and she slid three paltry nachos onto her plate.

“I’m not the one who is so uptight I won’t remove my sunglasses. Inside a bar.”

“I don’t want to draw attention.”

“Your sunglasses draw attention.” He took a drink of his beer. “If people stare at you, darlin’, it’s probably because they think you’re hiding a black eye. God, they probably think I gave it to you.”

“Woman beater.” She laughed and pulled the glasses from her face. She set them on the table and pursed her lips around her mojito straw. “You’re so uptight, you can’t even walk into a lingerie store.” She paused to take a bite of one chip. “You’re probably one of those guys who’s afraid that being surrounded by display bins filled with panties will suck out all your testosterone.”

“My testosterone is not affected by panties.” In fact, he was very fond of the sight of lacy panties on a woman. Especially if she was trying to suck out his testosterone.

She shook her head and tried not to smile. “I remember one summer when you pitched a conniption over my and Momma’s clean underwear hanging on the clothesline.”

He remembered that because he’d been traumatized by the sight of all those granny panties flapping in the breeze. “You two strung your clothesline in front of the carriage house.”

“We didn’t have a backyard.” She shrugged and finished off her measly chip.

“I was fourteen and my friends from school were heading up that day.” He wondered if she still wore big silky underwear. Somehow, he doubted it.

“You could have just taken the laundry down instead of freaking out.”

He doubted he’d freaked out. “I didn’t want to touch y’all’s grann … ah, laundry.”

“You haven’t changed. You’re still all uptight and fussy.” She took a drink and swallowed.

“I’ve never been uptight and fussy.” More like annoyed and provoked.

“I think you’re scared that all those panties will touch you and will shrivel you up like a raisin.”

He raised a brow. “Nothing ever shrivels me like a raisin.” Was he really talking about his balls? With Vivien Rochet? “I’m good that way.”

“The proof is in the pudding, as my mamaw used to say.” She reached for her shopping bag and set it on the table in front of him. “Prove it.”

“I’m not sticking my hand in there.”

“It’s not a bag of snakes, Henry.” She reached for a chip. “Go ahead.”

“I’m not your assistant. You can’t order me around.”

“Scared?”

“Stop, Vivien.” She was pushing him. Provoking him and, by the sparkle in her eyes, she as having fun doing it, too.

“I double-dog dare you, Henry.”

Behind her pretty face, he could almost see the little girl who’d rummaged through his closet, then dared him to call her a thief. The chubby little kid who stuck her tongue out at him when no one else was looking. “You can’t double-dog dare before you dare and double dare.”

“I’m not playing around.” Her gaze narrowed and she shook her head. “I’m going straight to the double dog.”

“You’re ridiculous.” He put the bag in his lap and kept his gaze locked with hers as he reached inside. Silk and lace touched the tips of his fingers and he pulled out a blue bra. A flimsy, see-through bra. He held it up by one strap and studied the tiny purple flowers before he dropped it back into the sack.

“How do you feel?”

“Not a bit shriveled.” And getting less shriveled by the second. He handed her the bag of bras and panties and glanced at the Tag Heuer on his wrist. “We should get going.” He stood and dug his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Thank you, Henry.”

Before he’d found her in Macy Jane’s muddy garden, he didn’t think he’d ever heard “thank you” pass her lips. “For what? You didn’t eat much.” He tossed two twenties on the table then stuffed his wallet into his back pocket.

“For driving me around today when you didn’t want to.” She grabbed her purse and sunglasses. “And for making me laugh and forget for just a few minutes why I’m here.”

He looked down into her green eyes and the laughter fading from her gaze. “You’re welcome, Vivien Leigh.” She slid the sunglasses on her face and he put his hand in the small of her back. As they crossed the street, he tried to recall exactly when he’d last put his hands on a woman’s bra and panties. It had probably been a few months ago. A few months’ worth of pent-up lust explained why the sight of Vivien in a black dress, the touch of a blue bra, and the warmth of her back against the palm of his hand made him think about sex. He opened the passenger door of his truck for Vivien, then moved to the driver’s side. He definitely had to do something about the dismal state of his sex life. The problem was, he wanted more than just sex. He was thirty-five and had been in two serious relationships. Both women had left him when they’d figured out that he hadn’t been serious enough to put a ring on it. It wasn’t that he was opposed to marriage, he just hadn’t ever been ready.