Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

Kel was leaning against the frame of the French door that opened onto a little balcony that overlooked Rosemary’s garden. I’d never be able to come in here again without remembering the way he looked against my white curtains with the winter-bare trees in the background. Or lay in my bed without remembering how it felt to be touched by a master craftsman.

He turned, managing to look both relaxed and alert, his brows arching over eyes openly amused. “I must be losing my touch.”

“Huh?”

“When I spend the night with a woman—”

Was that admiration in the bold gaze sliding down my body? Heat followed the path of his eyes.

“—she usually undresses before we go to bed.”

My throat went bone dry.

“How nice for you.” I sounded indifferent, but had a feeling a rampaging blush gave away now not indifferent I was. “I’ll just see what I can do in the way of food while you wash up, Mr. Kapone.”

I turned, the short distance to the door taking an eternity, when I could feel him watching me. My hand was on the door when he spoke.

“Isabel?”

I hesitated, then looked back.

“Yes?”

“I thought I asked you to call me Kel?”

He slipped into the bathroom and closed the door, so he missed my body-wide blush—and the smile edging up the sides of my mouth.

I fanned my hot face as I poured Addison his mega-serving of dog food, then brooded on the problem of Kelvin Kapone. He was a man who couldn’t be any of those things on his business cards. I’d seen him get shot, spent the night with him, and I still didn’t know who or what he was. Or what he thought about last night, about me. Did he remember everything that happened last night? To myself I could claim good copy as my excuse, but he didn't know that. What if he thought I wanted him to maul me in that highly pleasurable way? What if he tried to repeat some of those heart-stopping things in broad daylight? What if he tried to kiss me again?

I discovered I was smiling again and straightened my mouth. It was obvious that thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I opened the refrigerator and dug out some cold pizza, a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and a liter of Pepsi. I paused, frowning.

Something was missing.

“Fruit.” A former teacher ought to know her food groups better than that. I replaced the Pepsi with Cherry Coke, then cleared the cluttered top of my tiny breakfast bar, so I could set out paper plates, glasses and spoons. I finished my preparations just as Kel emerged from the bedroom.

He scrubbed up real good, even wearing slept-in, bled-upon pants. Nothing in his relaxed stance indicated injury except the white bandages across his mid-section visible where Mike’s shirt hung open. He paused in the doorway and looked around. My apartment, which gave me an illusion of separation from my omnipresent family, covered the entire garage. The public part had been unevenly divided into a living room and kitchen, with most of the footage going to the living room. Since cooking wasn’t high on my list of approved activities, I didn’t mind. Just past the kitchen was a hallway that led to the main house and the alcove where Addison lurked in his crate when he wasn’t hanging out with Rosemary’s son.

My living room was mostly work area. The broken down couch and chair serving as spill over for my drafting table and desk. There were no shelves, the scummy Dag had fled with his bimbo before finishing that chore, so my books, sheet music, sketches, stereo, keyboard, and miscellaneous papers and magazines were stacked on furniture and floor.

Kel looked at me and I went on the defense. “I know where everything is.”

“I can see that.” His intense gaze hooked mine, starting that weird stirring in my midsection. “That breakfast?”

“Uh, yeah—”

“Stan?” It was Rosemary in the hall outside my door and heading this way. “Are you up yet?”

My eyes popped wide. “My sister.”

Kel and I looked at each other for a frozen moment. If I’d blinked, I’d have missed his panther-like retreat to my bedroom. Rosemary poked her head around the door. Addison, now replete, almost knocked her over as he squeezed past her on his way to say good morning to Dominic.

Rosemary shut the door. “Are you all right? I thought I heard you fall or something?”

“I fell out of bed.”

Rosemary’s brows arched. “Aren’t you a little old to be falling out of bed?”

I arched mine back at her. “I didn’t know there was an age limit.”

She picked up a piece of pizza. “You haven’t forgotten you’re driving carpool this morning, have you?”

Carpool? Crap. “No. Why?”

“I thought maybe you’d like to meet me later, do some shopping? I want to pick up a girdle.” She helped herself to a spoonful of cookie dough, leaving a dab of brown on her upper lip.

“Do they still make them?”

“Of course, only they call them body shapers.”

A least a shopping trip would give me a reason to survive the carpool. And there was my date tonight. I could pick up something to wear for it.

“What time and where?”

“Macy's? Lingerie section?” I nodded and she looked at her watch. “Oh! I'd better blow. My glue gun class starts soon. I'm getting pretty good with it. I just pretend everything is Dag and it's easy.” She took a bite of pizza, swallowed, then said, “Meet me one-ish?”

When I nodded, she looked at her watch, dropped the half eaten slice back in the box and hopped off the stool. “Where’re my car keys?”

The car.

“I left them in the car. In the garage.”

I followed her out the door and down the stairs, although the last thing I wanted to do was be there when she hit the roof. In the dim interior of the garage, the car looked dusty and innocuous, like cars in the winter when you can’t