Love Me Not (6 page)

I brushed my fingertips along her jaw, and as I tasted her lips, she began kissing me back.

A few minutes later, we were naked in bed. I usually did the new ones in bed, and almost always missionary style. They seemed most comfortable this way.

Foreplay lasted awhile. She was exceptional at oral sex. Some women only did it because they thought they were supposed to, and some savored the experience. Candace seemed to think I was an ice cream cone. She spent a good fifteen minutes licking.

I was so ready. I skipped oral sex for her and lay her down. She spread her legs.

Maybe this time I’d be able to reach climax without thinking about the girl now working out front.

As Candace and I kissed deeply, I slowly entered her. I was more careful the first time—I didn’t like seeing any pain on their faces. I saw it often if I wasn’t careful.

Sometimes it amazed me that it still felt this good after all these years. Even the same position didn’t get boring.

After Candace had a couple orgasms, I knew I needed to finish soon. I tried to focus on her curves and the way she watched me, but just like the rest of today, it didn’t work. I had no problem staying hard, but ejaculation wasn’t going to happen. It pissed me off. I’d never had this problem before.

Kimber had to make everything fucking difficult.

I closed my eyes and pressed my face into Candace’s hair, so I couldn’t see who I was actually screwing.

Then Kimber was there, her image, her voice. It all came so easily. I wondered if this was what it was like to be schizophrenic. Penny was terrified of going nuts, but I thought it might be a relief. I could believe Kimber was with me without dealing with the consequences of being attached. I would not allow myself to be in love again.

Candace left a few minutes after we were done. I lay in bed, propped up on my elbow, watching her dress. She looked…fulfilled. I liked seeing that expression on a woman’s face, especially when I’d caused it.

The sex was good for me, but I didn’t feel fulfilled. I didn’t let myself think too hard about it.

After Candace kissed my cheek, she walked out of the room.

I flopped down on my pillow and didn’t move the rest of the night. I barely slept. I was too angry.

At about five a.m., I pulled myself up, showered, and cleaned the room, which really just meant new sheets. My first appointment was early, seven o’clock. Penny would open the shop door and then let her pass through since the shop wasn’t open yet. I supposed letting them come in the back looked too conspicuous.

This appointment and the next were regulars. Sometimes that was nice. I already knew what they liked. I didn’t have to pay as close attention.

My thoughts continued to veer in a particular direction. It was starting to be involuntary, perhaps because I wasn’t fighting it so much.

That pissed me off. I was in control of my own goddamned mind.

At around noon, I had a break, just enough time to shower and grab some food. I walked out the back so I could avoid everyone in the shop. Apparently, Penny had hired Kimber fulltime. Penny was not on my list of well-liked people right now.

I walked around the building to the main thoroughfare. Reddish-brown hair shown in the sun just ahead of me.

Son of a bitch. Could I not get away from the woman?

I was about to walk the other way when I noticed the direction she was going—toward Barnes and Noble. Before I made the conscious decision, my feet were following her, back several yards so she wouldn’t see me.

She had to pick the bookstore, the thing that would most pique my curiosity. Books were my weak spot that very few people knew about. Book nerd didn’t jive with the aura I needed to present in my line of work.

She walked in a good ten feet ahead of me. Once I made it inside, I paused to take a look around, trying to seem casual. I caught a glimpse of her fair skin as she turned a corner; the literature section, my favorite section. Excitement vibrated through me, and at the same time, I was angry. She had to be interesting as well as beautiful.

I found a spot where I could just see her over the tops of shelves. She took a large volume off the shelf. She went right to it, as if she knew exactly what she was looking for and where it was. She flipped through the book about halfway, found what seemed to be a particular page she was looking for, and then sat on the floor, out of my sight.

Perhaps coming here and reading the book was her usual lunchtime routine. Why didn’t she just buy the book and find someplace more comfortable to read? It was a nice volume, looked to be leather-bound. Perhaps she didn’t want to spend the money?

After awhile, fifteen minutes or so, she stood and replaced the book to its shelf. I paid close attention to which one it was.
A Christmas Carol.
As she walked away, I was still standing there like an idiot. I’d stood there the whole time. A woman in the same aisle where I was glanced at me.

I looked around to see Kimber walk out of the store. I went to the aisle where she’d been and took the book off the shelf. Then I paused. Perhaps I should leave it so she could continue reading it on her lunch break.

But someone else might buy it. No, I had a better idea.

I took the book to the register and paid—the most I’d ever paid for a book, which was saying something.

By the time I was done, I figured Kimber was likely back at the shop—it was safe to leave without her seeing me.

I walked out with my heavy bag and, for once, noticed the Christmas decorations in the store windows. I gave Penny a present every year, though it continued to be more and more generic, but I didn’t celebrate the holiday. I only vaguely noticed the season.

Now that I thought about it, it made me sad. Cassie and I used to love celebrating. She always insisted on a real tree, and I bought her a new ornament every year, something unique and sparkling…

Dammit, how in the hell did Cassie weasel her way into my thoughts?

I walked faster.

I didn’t buy ornaments anymore, and I didn’t celebrate.

And yet the bag I was carrying held a gift.
Son of a bitch.
What in the hell was I doing? I almost dumped the book in a trashcan, but throwing a book away was like hitting a woman. I didn’t abuse beautiful things. If they affected me too much, more than was safe, I simply ignored them.

Sometimes that was difficult.

“No, thank you.” It was Kimber’s voice. I knew it without thought, without doubt—soft with a slight raspiness. It had texture, not silk or satin, more like an angora sweater.

A group of people moved, and I saw Kimber talking to a young man in front of The Gap. She looked annoyed.

“What do you mean, ‘
No, thank you
’?” he said.

“What do you think I mean?”

“You
really
ought to think about how to talk to me.” I recognized the boy, the son of the owner of the hotel down the street. I’d met him once when I spent the night there. He’d tried to overcharge the woman I was with for the room.

Kimber crossed her arms. “Why is that?”

“Women are lined up to be with me.”

She looked around then back to him. “Where?”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

Then he took her arm—the bastard touched her.

I pushed by several people, took his hand off her, and stood in his face. “She said no.”

He hesitated and then shifted to get around me. I matched him. I was taller and definitely stronger.

“Whatever,” he finally said and walked away.

“Thanks,” Kimber said. “That was really nice.”

I barely glanced at her and then continued forward. In a few seconds, I could disappear down the walkway that led to the shop’s back door.

Quickened footsteps behind me. She sounded more annoyed than she had a minute ago with the hotel bitch. “You don’t have to defend me, you know. I can take care of myself.”

I kept walking.

“Jerk.”

As I turned the corner, I swore I heard a sniffle.

Chapter 10

The Women Who Hate Me

Kimber hated me. That was for damn sure. It was probably for the best.

Christmas was approaching, and the shop was busy. Kimber worked every day. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the leather-bound book I had hidden in my room.

I walked out into the shop and unlocked the bottom drawer. I figured if Penny asked what I was doing, I could tell her I was checking my schedule, and I knew Kimber wouldn’t ask or even wonder what I was doing. She didn’t talk to me, hardly even looked in my direction. That was probably good—so she’d never see when I looked at her.

I set my appointment book on the counter and pretended to look at it. I already knew my appointments for the day.

Kimber was helping an older woman. The shop sold a few health items, such aslike cream that helped reduce the pain from arthritis. Sometimes I wondered what would happen as I aged, if I’d be able to keep up this lifestyle. If I couldn’t screw anymore, I’d die, but I supposed a little joint pain wouldn’t stop me. Only one thing could stop me. Thank God for the invention of Viagra, though I doubted I’d ever need that, either.

“You just rub it on your hands,” Kimber said. “And it smells really nice.”

“That would be a nice change,” the woman said. “Never get old, dear. Nothing ever smells right again.”

Kimber’s lips curved into one of her rare smiles. She took a dab of lotion from the sample bottle. “May I?” The woman lifted her hand, and Kimber held it and gently rubbed lotion across the back of the woman’s hand. “It has a warming sensation,” Kimber said.

Kimber’s hands were calm and delicate like lily stems. I wondered what they would feel like on…

I looked back down at the book. She was right about the warming sensation.

I listened as Kimber talked with the woman a little more. I couldn’t remember having ever seen one of Penny’s employees actually care about what the customers had to say.

Then they walked toward me, toward the cash register.

Shit
. I stuffed my appointment book in the drawer and locked it, hoping to be faster than Kimber.

Her feet stopped right next to me. I wished she’d wear something other than slacks and ballet flats. I wanted to see the cream of her legs. I bet they would look like the curve of milk as it’s poured out of a pitcher.

I stood straight, and she stepped up to the register. She spoke to the woman. “You found everything you wanted?”

I smiled and nodded to the older woman and then walked away, down the back hall. I could’ve sworn Kimber glanced at me. That was the closest I’d been to her in a week, since pulling the hotel bitch off her. Her scent was radiating through me. I hoped my appointment was on time.

These glimpses of her were all I allowed—and then they replayed in my head while I had sex with other women. It was becoming the way I did things, the way sex worked for me.

I knew I had a serious problem when Penny asked what was wrong after our take-out dinner Friday night.

Standing across the front counter from her, I looked at the spreadsheet she’d prepared for me. The total for my accounts had hit a million dollars. The number didn’t really compute. It was just numbers on a page. I handed it back to her.

“You’re seriously not going to react?” she said.

I took a swig from my beer. “React to what?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You’re a
millionaire
, Heath.”

“It’s only a few thousand more than last week.”

She folded the printout and stuffed it in the locked bottom drawer. Then she stood straight and met my eyes. “I know there’s something wrong with you.”

I leaned over the counter and threw the bottle in the trash. “Stop being so damn nosy.”

“I have the right to worry about you. I’m your sister.”

“But you’re not my mother.”

She froze, her mouth slightly open, as if I’d slapped her.

The sound of a key in the lock.

I turned. Kimber was unlocking the front door, apparently unaware we were here.

“You gave her a
key
?” I said to Penny.

“She’s trustworthy.”

I sighed.

Her tone went from annoyed to pissed. “You think I want to be the
only
one who can open and close
every
day?”

“I’ll do it.”

“You barely have time to eat.” The door opened as she spoke.

“Oh, crap,” Kimber said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”

“It’s all right,” Penny said. “I noticed you forgot your phone. I’ll get it.” She opened the door to the back hall and disappeared.

I was alone with Kimber, and my escape route back to my room was blocked. Fucking great.

“Uh, hi,” she said.

Why in the hell was she talking to me all of a sudden?

“Good evening.” I walked around to the other side of the counter without looking at her. I pretended to look through some papers.

“Hey,” she said, “um, I’m sorry I called you a jerk.”

My God, I loved hearing her voice.

“No, you’re not,” I said.

She paused. “What?”

I still didn’t look up. “You’ve come to realize I’m the boss’s brother.”

“That’s not why—”

“Sure.” I turned away and pretended to look at something on the shelf along the back wall.

The slight sound of her footsteps moving closer. “Have I done something? I mean, you seem so nice to everyone else.”

“No.” She was perfect. That’s why I hated her. I’d followed her to the bookstore a couple more times. With no other copies of
A Christmas Carol
, she started on
Oliver Twist
. She seemed engrossed when she read. She smiled a little sometimes and even cried once, though she wiped her eyes thoroughly before leaving her little reading nook on the floor. I started rereading the book so I could guess at the parts that affected her.

A longer pause.

What in the hell was taking Penny so long?

“When we first met,” she said quietly, “weren’t you…It seemed like you were flirting…”

I turned and met her eyes. “If you haven’t noticed, I flirt with everyone. I thought you were a customer. I was doing my job.”