Keeping Kennedy (7 page)

“Got it,” she whispered just before she slid
out of his hold.

Drake scrubbed a hand over his face. This was
turning into a harder job than he’d anticipated, emphasis on the
hard part. Allowing the cool night air to do its work, he slowly
climbed the steps as Kennedy opened the back door.

“Quiet,” she warned in a stage whisper. “My
parents have probably been asleep for hours. You know, early to
bed, early to rise.”

As silently as possible they made their way
through the dark house, then up the stairs. When they reached the
second story landing, Kennedy hesitated.

“What’s that sound?” she asked softly.

“What sound?”

Then Drake heard it. The unmistakable sound
of creaking bedsprings. The longer he listened the more frantic the
sound became. Soon the springs were accompanied by moans and groans
of a human origin.

“Oh…my…god…” Kennedy breathed.

Drake passed a hand over is jaw to stifle a
chuckle. “Sounds like the flower children are pollinating.”

Kennedy whirled on him. He couldn’t see her
face but he could imagine the fury in those golden eyes. “This is
not funny, Drake!” She huffed. “My parents are…are…”

“Having sex,” he supplied.

“Ohmigod.” Kennedy stormed off in the
direction of her bedroom.

The next sound Drake heard was a crash.
Kennedy had collided with something. Lights came on and her parents
tumbled into the hallway, her mother wearing a carelessly donned
robe, her father in his boxers.

“Kennedy, is everything all right?” her
father asked breathlessly.

“No!” Kennedy whirled away from her
scantily-clad folks and busied herself with up righting the table
she’d overturned. “Why were you—why was the door locked?” she
sputtered.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” her mother offered,
shifting her robe into place. “Ever since that time Ricky Johnson
accidentally walked in on us, we’ve started locking the door when
we have sex.”

Her profile visible to him, Drake saw
Kennedy’s mouth drop open. He strode quickly to her side. “Sorry
to…interrupt you.” He smiled and ushered Kennedy toward her room.
“We’ll just—”

Kennedy suddenly balked, then turned back to
her parents. “Why would the lawn boy come up the stairs?” she
demanded, her mother’s words sinking in. “Don’t you still leave his
money on the kitchen table?”

“Well, sweetpea, we weren’t upstairs,” her
father explained. “We were in the kitchen on the table.”

Kennedy’s mouth sagged open again.

“G’night, folks,” Drake said, dragging a
stunned Kennedy farther down the hall. “We have a big day ahead of
us, so we’d better call it a night.”

Brenda and Chuck called their goodnights as
Drake forced their daughter into her bedroom. She turned on him
then, her eyes wide with indignation.

“The kitchen table?” she shrieked.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” he
suggested calmly.

Kennedy ran the fingers of both hands through
her hair, undoing that sexy do…into an even sexier one. Damn, why
did he have to notice that? He tugged his shirt over his head.

“This can’t be happening,” she muttered
distractedly.

“Come on. Kennedy, it’s not that big a deal.
If it makes you feel any better, my parents probably have sex,
too.”

She glared at him, hands on hips. “Don’t you
dare try to mollify me. First, I had to beg you to help me—” With
one surprised palm, she halted his attempt at protest. “I get home
and find my parents have turned into hippies.” She huffed an
indignant sound. “Then I discover that I was conceived out of
wedlock. And that doesn’t even include all the reunion crap. I’ve
had just about all I can stand for one day!”

He unbuttoned his fly and lowered his zipper.
“Don’t blow a gasket, Kennedy. It’s been a long day, but tomorrow
things will be better.”

As if suddenly realizing that he was removing
his clothes, Kennedy stared at him. “What the hell are you
doing?”

“Getting ready for bed.”

Without another word, Kennedy pivoted and
stormed out the door.

Drake shook his head. He tossed his shirt on
a handy chair and stripped he covers back from the bed. Scratching
his chest, he wandered back into the hall and down to the bathroom.
Kennedy was definitely overreacting. Of course, he was overreacting
as well—only in a different way.

After taking care of necessary business,
including brushing his teeth, he padded back to her room. Surely
things would be better tomorrow. He still hadn’t had a decent
night’s sleep.

What sounded like ripping cloth hit his ears
before he stepped through the bedroom door. He frowned at the sight
of Kennedy crouched in the middle of the bed, dress hiked up around
her shapely thighs.

“What are you doing?”

She backed awkwardly to the foot of the bed,
then hopped down. She flung what looked like a roll of silver duct
tape across the room and slapped her hands together as if dusting
them off. “Now,” she said triumphantly.

“Now what?”

She turned and with a flourish gestured to
the bed. “That’s your side and that’s mine.”

Drake stared in disbelief at the bed she had
divided straight down the middle with a line of duct tape. She
couldn’t be serious.

Kennedy walked to the right side of the
bed—her side. She kicked off her shoes and shot him a look. “And if
you know what’s good for you, you’d better not let any part of your
body cross that line.”

Chapter Four

It was difficult to breathe. She couldn’t
move.

Kennedy struggled to awaken, to fight the
weight crushing her. Slowly, awareness crept through the darkness,
bringing with it a sense of time and place.

Hot.
She felt hot and languid as she
floated just the other side of consciousness. Not quite awake, but
not fully asleep. A smile tugged at her lips as she inhaled the
intriguing scent that cloaked her. Leather and musk…warm and male.
Her heart rate increased, edging her closer to consciousness. The
indistinct, seemingly formless weight suddenly began to take
shape.

A hard, heavy thigh rested between hers. A
strong, thick arm draped her chest, long fingers splayed across her
bare shoulder. Her head seemed trapped between two unyielding
objects. Kennedy’s eyes opened and her heart lurched to a near
stop. Her face was pressed into the curve of Drake’s neck, trapped
between his chin and shoulder. He was practically on top of her,
crushing her with his muscular frame. His—

Her eyes rounded when she realized exactly
what was pressing into her hip. She opened her mouth to scream, but
quickly snapped it shut. If she screamed her parents would come
running…She couldn’t do that.

She licked her painfully dry lips.
Okay,
be calm,
she told herself. All she had to do was wake him—no!
No way would she let him catch her like this. She frowned as she
performed a quick physical inventory. Hot, wet, and throbbing.
Kennedy cursed her traitorous body. She wasn’t supposed to have
reactions like this to this man. She had never reacted to him like
this.

Friends—they were supposed to be friends.

She listened intently to his breathing…slow,
deep, even. He was dead to the world. Okay. All she had to do was
scoot out from under him. Her right arm was trapped beneath his
massive chest, and to her supreme chagrin, curled around his back.
What the hell was he doing on her side of the bed anyway?

Kennedy smoothed her left hand over the sheet
to find the duct tape to the right of her. Damn! She was on his
side. How had that happened? At least he wasn’t naked. Thank God
for that. The metal teeth of his half-open fly bit through the thin
cotton T-shirt she wore. Why hadn’t she packed heavy flannel?
Because she hadn’t expected to be sharing a room with him—that’s
why! Her parents were supposed to put him in the guestroom.

Chewing her lower lip, she held her breath as
she eased a tiny fraction to the right. Drake groaned, then
promptly tucked her back against him. Kennedy squeezed her eyes
shut and waited for him to resettle—but he didn’t. Her breath
caught when his hips ground solidly into hers, making her all the
more aware of his arousal. It took all the restraint she could
marshal not to touch him intimately. Desire roared through her
body, leaving her weak with want. Then his right hand slid down to
her breast and he squeezed.

Flustered, confused, and enraged, Kennedy did
the only thing she could—she clamped down on his chest, biting for
all she was worth.

“Son of a—” Drake jerked away. “What the hell
are you doing?” He glared at her, those gray eyes dark with more
than irritation, desire maybe. He shoved his fingers through his
sleep-mussed hair, then touched the bite mark on his chest. “Are
you insane, Kennedy?”

“Get off me, you big oaf,” she snarled,
matching his glare with a murderous one of her own.

His handsome face looked confused, then
realization dawned. “Damn!” He rolled off her, and the bed. He
slammed into the floor with a resounding thud, punctuated by
several ear-scorching four letter words—a number of which Kennedy
couldn’t recall ever having heard before.

She peeked over the edge of the mattress and
smiled sweetly. “Good morning.” She had a sudden, almost
overwhelming, urge to push that thick lock of raven black hair away
from his forehead, then skim his shadowed jaw. Her fingertips
tingled at the thought. Kennedy quickly balled her fingers into
fists and banished the forbidden yearning. “Are you always this
grumpy before coffee?”

Pushing up onto his elbows and positioning
himself entirely too close, his utterly appealing and intensely
wild masculine scent filled her nostrils. Kennedy’s breathing
hitched.

“Only when crazy women try to take a bite out
of me.” He reached up to rub the angry red mark on his chest.

“Serves you right.” Needing distance in a
hurry, she bounded off the opposite side of the bed. “You’ll learn
to keep your hands to yourself.” She headed for the closet,
scowling, intent on finding something suitable to wear for a
scavenger hunt.

“Well, maybe in the future you’ll stay on
your side of the bed,” he countered, the sound of his zipper
underscoring his words.

She shuddered at the sound—with disgust or
lingering desire, she didn’t know, nor did she intend to analyze
her reaction. “You are so crude, Drake,” she muttered as she rifled
through the contents of her closet. How could she wear any of these
out-of-style clothes? Had she really been that much of a geek?
Evidently the answer was yes.

“I’d talk about crude,” he growled, his
breath hot on her neck.

Kennedy jumped away, then whirled to face
him. How had he sneaked up on her like that? “Eighteen inches,
Drake,” she warned. “You’re in my personal space again.”

Shirtless and looking entirely too sexy for a
friend, he took an unwilling step back. That crooked half smile
overtaking his lips, he leaned against the doorframe in his very
own cocky, lazy way. “I would’ve never taken you for the hickey
type.”

Kennedy gave him a you-wish look. “I bed your
pardon?”

He tapped his chest. “Hickey. You do know
what a hickey is, don’t you, Kennedy?”

She glanced at the darkening bruise, then
glowered at him. “
That
is no hickey. It’s a battle scar.”
She arched a brow. “And next time I may aim a whole lot lower.”

Drake smiled wickedly. “Promise?”

“Get out of here so I can get dressed.”
Kennedy shooed him out of the walk-in closet, flipped the switch
for the closet light, then pushed the door closed. She pressed her
forehead against the cool painted surface and cursed herself for
the fool she was.

“This isn’t real, Kennedy,” she muttered.
But, why oh why did it feel so real?

He had hit the nail on the head without even
knowing it. She was insane.

Absolutely.

Unquestionably.

Certifiably insane.

And considering the recent behavior of her
parents, the problem was clearly genetic.

~*~

Twenty minutes later, both dressed in
tattered jeans and T-shirts, Kennedy led Drake into the kitchen.
The smell of fried bacon made her stomach rumble.

Had she even eaten last night? She didn’t
think so.

“Good morning, sweetpea,” her father, still
decked out in hippie garb, said over the morning paper.

“Morning,” she replied as cheerily as
possible, considering the task that lay before her. Drake and her
father exchanged greetings.

“Would you two like some breakfast?”
Kennedy’s mother gestured to the serving platter warming on the
stovetop. This morning Bren sported a mini-dress, a suede vest with
fringe that skimmed the hem of her skirt, and thigh-high leather
boots.

Before either of them could respond,
Kennedy’s father pulled a chair from the table. “Sit, enjoy,” he
suggested.

Kennedy’s gaze suddenly riveted to the
kitchen table and her appetite vanished. “I—I think I’ll j-just
have juice.” She swallowed and turned on her heel to make a dash
for the fridge.

No way could she ever eat at that table
again. She closed her eyes and blocked the image of her formerly
respectable parents amusing themselves on the shiny oak top.

“Exciting plans for the day?” she heard her
father ask Drake.

Kennedy poured her juice and listened to
Drake recite the details of their scavenger hunt.

“Why, honey, that sounds like great fun,” her
mother enthused.

“I can’t wait,” Kennedy muttered.

“Oh, my.”

Her gaze shifted to her father. He tapped he
paper now lying flat on the kitchen table. “Would you look at
this,” he said, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “I can’t
believe it. Not after all this time.”