Seduced by Stratton (The English Brothers Book 4) (9 page)

“Oh. Okay. Well, yeah, that changes things. I’m Danny Morello. I’m her, uh . . . well, you could say I’m, well, her boyfriend. Sort of.”

“Huh,” murmured Stratton, surprised by the tightness in his chest, the sudden lump in his throat. “You are?”

“Yeah. I am,” he asserted, leaning down to pick up his toolbox.

At that moment, the studio door opened and Valeria stood before them, her face flushed. She glanced at Stratton, giving him a hard, angry look before shining her eyes on Danny and giving him a breathtaking smile.

“Hey, Danny,” she purred.

“H-Hey, Val,” he answered, dumbstruck.

She took two steps closer to him and grabbed the lapels of his canvas work jacket, pulling him toward her. “Missed you.”

“Oh—oh, yeah? You, uh, you missed me?”

“Lots,” she said, licking her lips.

Stratton watched in fascination and with fury bunching up the muscles of his stomach as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Danny’s. When she leaned back, she gave Danny a small smile before looking at Stratton, smile gone, her chest heaving and her eyes wild. He stared back at her, humorless, his own chest heaving up and down just as fast, his eyes likely as wild as hers.

“Ready to go?” she asked tersely.

“Yep,” he spat.

She grabbed her coat off a hook behind him then turned to head down the stairs without a second glance at Stratton, who used every ounce of his strength not to punch a dazed and confused Danny Morello in the face.

She took off at a brisk pace, only half-caring if Stratton was keeping up with her. Damn it, but he had really hurt her feelings this time. As she had straightened up the studio before leaving for the evening, she could hear Stratton and Danny outside in the hallway. When she realized they were talking about her, she’d stood against the wall next to the door and listened.

Val and I are friends . . . just friends . . . I’m not with her . . . I don’t even . . .

“Don’t even
what
?” she’d wanted to scream. See her as a woman? Well, she’d fixed that. She’d
forced
him to see her as a woman.

She pursed her lips, trying not to smile as she recalled the stunned look on Danny’s face, then shook her head, feeling disappointed in herself. Yes, Danny had lied about them being together, but she’d used Danny to make a point, and not only did she owe him an explanation, but an apology too. Danny was a good man—not the right man for Val, and he shouldn’t have said he was her boyfriend—but he didn’t deserve to be played with either. She’d be sure to catch him sometime over the next few days and figure out a way to smooth things over.

“Talk about being unavailable,” Stratton blurted out from beside her.

“Hmm,” she huffed, refusing to look at him.

“You have a
boyfriend
?” he asked, hooking his thumb back toward the studio.

She stopped walking, fixing him with an irate stare. “You and I are
just
friends
, Stratton. It’s none of your business if I’m dating someone or not.”

He straightened his glasses. “No, I guess it’s not.”

“Right.”

“Fine.”

She started walking again.

Not even three seconds ticked by before Stratton spoke again, his voice bubbling up like an explosion. “He’s not good enough for you!”

“Oh, really? What exactly is it that I deserve, Stratton?”

“Someone nice. Someone who doesn’t use coarse expletives in his everyday—”

She gasped. “Snob!”

“I’m not being a snob. There were old ladies within earshot!”

“Weren’t. They’d all left by then.”

“By . . . by then? Wait,” he said, grabbing her wrist and stopping her in front of the brick and wrought iron fence of Palumbo Park. “You heard what we were talking about?”

“Yes, I heard.” She was grateful for a sharp wind that whipped into her eyes and gave her an excuse for tears. “You know what, Stratton? Since Thursday evening, you’ve done real wonders for my self-esteem. I mean, I’m grateful for the help you gave my Zia
Angelina. Really grateful. But, every other word out of your mouth is about how you don’t find me attractive—”

“I told you I lied about that!”

“And yet you keep showing up—”

“You invited me here today!”

“And saying that we’re
just
friends, or—”

“We
are
friends, aren’t we?”

“—how you just don’t see me like . . . like . . .”

“Like what?”

“Like a woman!” she finished.

“You don’t think I see you like a woman?” he demanded, his fingers tightening. His eyes had turned from light blue to steel gray and they were fixed, in fury, and with laser-like precision, on hers.

“No,” she said in a low, hurt whisper. She tried to wrestle her wrist away, but he held it tight, so she stopped fighting him and looked down at her boots. “I don’t.”

Gasping as he suddenly hauled her up against his chest, he released her wrist to wrap his arms around her.

“You’re wrong,” he groaned breathlessly. “I do.”

Then he leaned forward and dropped his lips to hers.

***

Warning bells went off in Stratton’s head, but they were silenced by the rush of blood that raced through his body, hot and electric, demanding that he focus every drop of his attention on the woman in his arms. The scent of talc and coconut that belonged solely to her surrounded him, and he closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of her warm, pliant lips beneath his.

Her hands, which were trapped and mittened between them, flattened on his chest as she relaxed. She moaned softly, giving him the courage to trace the seam of her lips with his tongue and coax her mouth gently open. Her lips parted and his tongue swept into her mouth, his hands on her back flexing against the frustratingly thick down of her parka to push her more tightly against him. Though he couldn’t feel them this time, the recent memory of her nipples straining behind the tight Lycra of her leotard made him groan softly, and he tilted his head to fit his lips more perfectly over hers.

As he kissed her, more passionately than he’d never kissed another woman before in his life, his mind reeled from the sweetness of the woman in his arms. He knew exactly who she was. She was Valeria, not Amy. He knew and he didn’t care, because he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her, from reaching for her, from longing for the combination of fascinating, sexy woman that was Valeria Campanile. And he knew it was wrong, and he knew he should stop, but he couldn’t. He would have gone on kissing her for as long as she’d let him, but for the distraction of his phone, pinging insistently, alerting him that someone was texting him.

He drew back from Valeria, panting and unsatisfied, watching as her eyes slowly opened to look up into his.

“Stratton,” she murmured, “I . . . I, um . . .”

“You were wrong. I
do
see you as a woman,” he said softly, searching her deep, brown eyes and refusing to loosen his hold on her.

“I believe you,” she answered, licking her reddened lips before touching them softly with one pink mitten. Her chest heaved up and down against his as his phone pinged again. “You should probably see who that is.”

He relaxed, and when she stepped back he instantly missed the warmth of holding her. Still staring into her brown eyes, he swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling lost and confused as he took his phone from his pocket. Swiping the screen to unlock it, he hazarded a look at Val, whose face was undecipherable to him—unsmiling, possibly confused, possibly upset, he couldn’t tell.

He looked at his screen again to see that he had three new texts. Clicking on the text app, his stomach filled with butterflies
and
flipped over nauseously as the name “Amy Colson” came up.

Of course. Of course she would text me right now, right this minute.

The first text,
Stratton, look what I’m watching . . .
was accompanied by a photo of her hotel room TV screen featuring a scene with Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams.

The second text said,
Name that movie?

And the third text was a picture of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia with a sad-face emoticon.

“
Mean Girls
,” he murmured, picturing Amy’s pretty face in his head. Damn if karma didn’t have perfect timing. It’s like the universe wanted to be sure that Amy wasn’t too far from his mind or heart, interrupting the best kiss he’d ever had by reminding him of the girl he was supposed to love.

“What?” asked Val, who stood against the wrought iron gate of the park. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” He sighed.

“Is everything okay?”

No, everything’s not okay. I’m supposed to be waiting for Amy, not kissing you. But you’ve suddenly come along, and I like you, and I can’t stop thinking about you, and—

“Stratton?”

“Yeah,” he said, as he dropped his phone back in his pocket. “Everything’s weird . . . I—I mean, fine.”

“Was that . . . her?”

He took a deep, shaky breath and nodded.

“I think we should talk,” said Val, walking through the park gates and gesturing to a nearby bench lightly covered with snow under a leafless tree. Stratton brushed it off before they sat down. She shivered beside him, but he kept himself from reaching for her and pulling her against his side, even though he wanted to.

“You just kissed me,” she said softly.

He shook his head with regret. “I had no right to do that.”

“I liked it. I like
you,
” she said. “But you’re confusing me.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I’m confusing myself.”

“Are you with someone or not?”

“Sort of. Not exactly.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered in a thready voice.

“I’m not
with
her, but she’s in my heart.”

“Oh,” said Val softly from beside him.

He heard the explanation in his head.
For two years, I’ve been in love with Amy Colson, the girl who lives down the hall from me, and all the while she’s been dating this total jerk. I need a plan to win her heart, to save her from more pain, and I thought you might be the perfect person to help me.

Taking a deep breath, he turned to Val, sinking into her deep, dark brown eyes. She was lovely and warm, smart, interesting, and fun, and she felt like heaven in his arms, both on the dance floor and under the stars. If there was no Amy in his heart, if he was free, he’d drag her back up against him, he’d taste her mouth until she was begging for more, and then he’d take her to his apartment and—

“Stratton?” She tilted her head to the side expectantly, and sitting there beside her in the winter twilight Stratton’s heart clutched. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t ask for her help. In fact, he was surprised to realize he didn’t
want
her help anymore in seducing Amy. He’d figure it out another way.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered instead, feeling helpless.

“Where do I put that kiss? Where do I file it in my head?”

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “How about under ‘impulsive behavior?’”

She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath, searching his eyes. “Impulsive behavior between
friends
?”

There was a very real part of Stratton that cringed internally to hear her define them as “friends,” even though that’s what they were and that’s all they could be as long as he was still committed to saving Amy from Étienne.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Between friends.”

“Under ‘Impulsive behavior between friends that
won’t
be repeated?’”

He heard the warning in her voice and tightened his lips as he looked away from her. The right answer was yes, but he couldn’t form the word.

“Stratton?”

His eyes cut to hers, full of regret and longing. He felt it. He could feel it all over his body, the way he wanted her, the way he liked her, the way he simply couldn’t have her.

“Yes. Impulsive behavior between friends that won’t be repeated.”

She looked away from him then, and he could have sworn he saw her eyes glisten with tears. He hated himself for hurting her, but he couldn’t abandon Amy. Unless he figured out another way to save her from a life of being Étienne’s plaything, he simply wasn’t free.

Val’s voice was tired and sad. “You needed a favor from me. What is it?”

What he should have said was,
Nothing. I don’t need a favor anymore
. And then he should have walked away from her and left her alone. But different words were suddenly tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.