The King Next Door (5 page)

As if sensing her thoughts, Griffin said, “It’ll be back to normal in a couple of weeks, Nicole. Like the fire never happened.”

She smiled, but all she could think was, it
had
happened. And she knew it would be a long time before she would be able to forget what might have happened.

Four

T
hree days later, all Nicole could think was, thank God her laptop survived the fire.

With Connor at preschool, she was trying to catch up on work. She bent her head to the task of tallying up the billing for Comisky’s flowers and told herself she was lucky in a lot of ways. She and Connor were both safe. The fire had been contained in the kitchen. She had insurance—okay, yes, with a huge deductible that was going to eat up her pitifully small savings and force her to maneuver a loan—but still. Her computer was safe, which meant she could keep working and making a living. And she and her son had a place to stay that wasn’t costing them a fortune.

All good things.

The only downside…Griffin.

She stopped typing and sat back in her chair. Oh, he was trying to stay out of her way. She knew that. In the last three days, she’d only seen him at breakfast and at dinner. Otherwise, he was either in that damned hot tub or at the job site at her place or out in his car.

Probably best, she told herself firmly. Since the day he’d moved into Katie and Rafe’s house, she’d been on edge. Desires she’d thought long dead had come back to life with a vengeance and she couldn’t do anything with them.

Which had been making for some really annoying dreams.

In her dreams she felt Griffin’s hands moving over her body and ached for more. Then she woke up miserable and had to face him over the breakfast table and pretend that she wasn’t wondering just how good he was in bed.

Stupid.

He was probably
great.

Didn’t matter. She couldn’t have an affair with Griffin. A, he wasn’t interested and B…

Nicole stopped typing, closed the file she couldn’t concentrate on and shut the lid of her laptop. There was a B, right? Of course there was a B. There had to be. But damned if she could think of what it was.

He was single—obviously. So was she. Okay, yes, she had Connor, but her son didn’t really come into this equation. She wasn’t looking for a husband and a father for Connor. All she was interested in was an actual orgasm. Or two. It had been
way
too long and Griffin was so…

For three nights she’d lain in her bed, knowing that Griffin was right across the hall, lying in his. For three nights she’d tossed and turned and then, when she finally did manage to fall asleep, there he was, starring in her dreams. Dreams that were hot enough to have her waking up needy and achy.

“How am I supposed to work when I can’t stop thinking about him?” Naturally, she didn’t have an answer to that question. Well, all right, she did know the answer, it just didn’t help her. Honestly, Nicole didn’t know what to do. She was stuck here until her house was habitable again, and it was another two weeks before Rafe and Katie would come home. Which meant she and Griffin were going to stay in close quarters.

So she had to find a way to deal with the situation.

Right now, just like every day, Griffin was next door with his cousin and the crew he had working on her kitchen, though Nicole hadn’t been back to her house since the first day the crew arrived. She’d stepped into the middle of controlled destruction and hadn’t lasted long. Watching the guys take sledgehammers to the cupboards and what remained of the ceiling had just been too traumatic for her.

With every swing of their hammers, they were knocking down years of memories, and Nicole had vowed not to go back until the job was done. She trusted the Kings to do a good job, and having her underfoot wouldn’t help anyway. So she worked with Lucas over the phone and by email and Griffin seemed determined to spend nearly every waking moment over there. Which was just one more good reason to avoid her own home.

Damn it.
No matter what she did, her thoughts kept straying back to Griffin.

“This isn’t working at all,” she muttered and leaped up.

She grabbed her purse and car keys, then headed for the front door. What Nicole needed was some coffee and some common sense, not necessarily in that order. And since Katie was out of town, Nicole knew just where to go.

*

A half hour later, she was sitting at a small round table at Cupcake Central, owned by another of her clients and an old friend, Sandy Cannon.

“Your problem is, you’re overthinking it,” Sandy said, pausing for a sip of her latte. “I mean, he’s gorgeous, so are you—”

Nicole laughed out loud at that one.

“—he’s single and so are you. You’re in the same house. What’s the downside here?”

Frowning, Nicole looked at her friend. Sandy was married to her high school love, had three kids and ran a successful business. As far as Nicole could see, she pretty much had it all. Except, apparently, the power to talk Nicole out of doing something she really wanted to do.

“I came to you expecting to hear you say,
Stop. Don’t. Run.
”

Sandy laughed. “Why would I say any of that? Do I look crazy?”

“Do I?” Nicole shook her head and stared down into her latte as if looking for help she wasn’t finding anywhere else. “If I do this, it’ll become a huge mess.”

“How is good sex wrong?” Sandy asked, keeping her voice low so that none of her other customers would overhear.

“When it’s with the absolutely
wrong
guy,” Nicole answered.

“Okay,” Sandy said, “tell me why he’s so wrong for you.”

“Where do I start?” Nicole snorted. “He’s a King, for one thing.”

“So? Most women in California are tripping over themselves trying to bump into one of the King men.”

“Yeah, well, my best friend is married to one of them.”

“And that’s important because…”

“Because it might make things weird for Katie, and I don’t want to do that.”

“How would you having sex with one of Katie’s cousins-in-law make life rough for her?”

“According to Griffin, she told all of the Kings that I was off-limits. She didn’t want any of them hurting me.”

Sandy frowned a little, broke off a piece of her raspberry cream-filled cupcake and popped it into her mouth. As she chewed, she said, “It’s different if it’s your idea.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely.”

“Still…” Oh, God, she was seriously considering jumping into bed with Griffin.

Sandy glanced over at the counter, where her employee was finessing an espresso machine into bursts of steam and hissing. When she looked back at Nicole, she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It’s been
years
since you’ve had sex.”

Sighing, Nicole said, “You really don’t have to remind me.”

“Obviously I do, since it’s right there in front of you and you’re not grabbing hold—so to speak.”

A wry smile curved Nicole’s lips. “But Griffin is exactly the kind of man I swore I’d stay away from. He moves from woman to woman as easily as my ex-husband did.”

“Which is why he’s perfect,” Sandy countered, a victorious smile on her face. “Seriously, girl, you’re not looking for hearts and flowers here. You just want a little fun. What better guy to get it from? Think about it. No strings. No expectations. No promises to be broken…” She sat back in her chair. “Guys do it all the time. Why shouldn’t we?”

All good points, Nicole acknowledged as her body began a slow burn in places that hadn’t seen any kind of heat for way too long.

“It’s a fling,” Sandy said. “Like a summer vacation. God knows you could use a vacation. I’ve never seen anyone who works as much as you do—along with taking care of the house and Connor and—”

“I get it,” Nicole said, cutting her friend off before she could really get going. “And Griffin is perfect.”

“There you go!”

Could she do it? Could she have a quick, meaningless affair? She worried that thought in her mind for a minute or two. This so wasn’t like her, but on the other hand…

This might be too good an opportunity to pass up.

“You know,” she said, “I actually came here so you could talk me off the ledge, not give me a shove over.”

“Please.” Sandy grinned. “You never thought I’d talk you out of it. You were hoping I’d say go for it. And I am.”

She had her there, Nicole admitted. Sandy had always been the go-for-the-brass-ring kind of girl. Of course she’d encourage Nicole to do exactly what she wanted to.

And, subconsciously at least, that’s just what Nicole had wanted to hear.

When Sandy was called over to help at the counter, Nicole stayed where she was. Her gaze slid to the wide front window that overlooked Main Street. Crowds were thick during the summer. There were moms with kids, retired couples and streams of surfers headed toward the beach.

Seemed like everyone was enjoying their summer vacation. Except for her. Maybe Sandy was right. Maybe it was time Nicole did a little something for herself.

Nodding, she took another sip of her latte, ate the rest of her cupcake and made plans for seduction.

*

At least he was tired, Griffin thought, easing down into the hot tub. To keep busy today, he’d worked his ass off with Lucas’s crew in Nicole’s kitchen. He’d spent a few summers working construction as a kid, so he knew his way around a job site. Steve and Arturo had been happy for the help and, truthfully, Griffin had needed something to
do.
Something that would keep him out of the house and at a safe distance from Nicole. Something that would occupy him enough that his thoughts wouldn’t have time to settle on the woman who was driving him nuts.

Now he was tired enough that he hoped for actual sleep tonight, and if he was really lucky, he wouldn’t dream.

Because if he did, he knew Nicole would be the star in another
very
hot scenario that would have him waking hard and miserable.

“Good times,” he muttered and laid his head back against the edge of the tub.

Overhead, the branches of the ancient elm waved and danced in the ocean breeze, making the leaves rattle gently. Glimpses of stars came and went between those branches and Griffin settled in to force himself to relax.

The old, settled neighborhood in Long Beach was quiet at night. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked and the muted sounds of rock music played in the air from someone’s stereo. The whole scene was damn near perfect.

“Should be relaxing,” he muttered, then he sat up and fisted his hands on the edges of the huge, square tub. Yeah. This wasn’t working. Hell, he hadn’t been anything but tense since he had started this vacation, no matter how many hours he tried to laze away in the hot tub he was beginning to hate.

“What’s so great about a damn vacation anyway?” he whispered, his voice lost beneath the rush and rumble of the tub jets. “Why is work such a bad thing?”

There was no one to answer him—not that Griffin expected an argument. Hell, he knew that work was better than no work. Kept a man’s mind occupied, increased his fortune and gave him something to
do.

This whole mess was his own damn fault. He was the one who had decided to take some time. To rethink his workaholic, commitment-free lifestyle. Right about now, though, he wished to hell he was in his office buried in work. Or in Cadria visiting his twin. Or on a date with some nameless model. Hell, he wished he was on the other side of the planet, because since Nicole and Connor had moved in with him—

He shifted uncomfortably on the bench seat. Between the heat in his blood and the hot water pulsing around him, he was teetering on the edge of a very sharp cliff. All because he had wanted to change up his life. Mature.

Well, maturity was seriously overrated.

“You just have to hang on for a couple of weeks,” he told himself in a whisper. “Lucas has an extra crew working on Nicole’s place. It’ll be done and she will be gone before you know it.”

Perfectly reasonable.

It just didn’t help him
now
.

Hell, nothing could. He was wound tight enough to give off sparks, for God’s sake. And there was no end in sight. Thoughts blew through his mind, spinning with the force of a tornado. Griffin wasn’t used to backing away from a beautiful woman. Turned out, it was damned uncomfortable.

He thunked the back of his head against the edge of the tub. “You could just leave the house to Nicole and her son and go to a hotel. Hell, screw the whole vacation thing and go back to work, too.”

But that thought hit him wrong. Not only would his twin never let him forget it if Griffin gave up early and went back to work, but leaving the house now would be like running away, and one thing a King
never
did was turn tail and run. They stood their ground, even when that ground was crumbling beneath their feet, dropping them into an abyss of misery and pain.

He snorted. “Do-it-the-hard-way-Kings. That’s us.”

“Talking to yourself again?”

He sat up straight, sending water sloshing against the rim of the hot tub. Turning his head, he watched as Nicole stepped out of the house and walked toward him. Immediately he wished he hadn’t looked at her at all.

Damn.

He’d known the woman had a great body, but admiring her curves under a layer of tank tops and shorts was different than seeing those same curves defined by a bikini small enough to barely merit being called a swimsuit.

In the wash of moonlight, her skin gleamed like warm honey and looked just as smooth. Her breasts were perfect, high and full and just barely hidden by the triangles of neon-green material. Her belly was flat, her hips rounded, and as his eyes were drawn down to another scrap of fabric at the juncture of her thighs, his own body went hard as stone.

Oh, man. This was not a good thing.

“Wow,” she murmured, tipping her head and smiling at him. “Didn’t think I’d ever see Griffin King suddenly struck speechless.”

He scrubbed one hand across his face and shook his head. Damned if he’d give Nicole the upper hand in this. No woman had ever knocked him on his ass before, and he wasn’t about to let this be the first time. He couldn’t afford to have a clouded mind—especially not now. Though how he was supposed to think about anything but the body she was displaying, Griffin didn’t know.

“Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t hear you come out here.” He looked past her and frowned. “Where’s Connor?”