and disinterestedly with the ever-classy What do we have here? and its accompanying leer, but when she turned, her mind short-circuited and her mouth refused to open.
Which was okay because the man behind her didn’t even say, What do we have here?
Nope. He said, “If it isn’t little Kaylee Jayne Whitfield all grown up,” and she had no firm-but-disinterested answer to that, especially not when he was smiling that rebel smile at her—at her—the sexy one that flipped up the right side of his sinful mouth.
“Aidan!” She took an awkward step back on her high heel, bobbled on the slick tile. And he reached out to steady her, like he had Friday night when they’d bumped into each other, but not before her phone crashed to the floor.
The sickening clatter left no doubt that it hadn’t survived its run-in with the tiles, but she could barely bring herself to care—not when Aidan had his hands on her again. God he was beautiful.
Get it together, Kaylee.
She pulled free, crouching to retrieve her phone at the same time he did. He beat her to it by virtue of his longer arms.
His handsome face grew serious—almost annoyed—as he picked up the phone and looked at it.
“Bad news,” he told her, turning it so she could see the shattered screen. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Ouch.” She did her best to smile as he handed her the useless phone, but his fingers brushed hers, and her skin tingled to life. Which was really inconvenient. She didn’t need all her nerve endings sparking up an electrical storm right now. She needed to focus on acting like a grown-ass woman instead of a gangly teenager with braces and heart eyes for her older brother’s adventurous best friend.
She stood quickly, needing space and cursing the cruel irony that would see all of her mysterious sex-goddess vibes destroyed by the man who’d gifted her with them in the first place. She dipped her head, let her hair shield her face, felt herself getting smaller, trying to escape notice. She couldn’t have him ruining her incredible secret night by recognizing her as the woman from the supply closet. She wished she had the darkness of the club at her disposal now. Or at the very least, the magic, confidence-giving power of her sparkly pasties.
Then he stood, still close enough that she could smell him—man and fresh air and leather and motorbike, all warmed by his bronzed skin.
“Stand up straight, KJ,” he teased, his voice soft and low as he quoted her mother, tacking on the nickname that only he had ever called her. It reminded her of their past, when he’d sometimes felt like her only ally. A tiny smile curved her lips despite herself as she lifted her face to make eye contact.
But the chaste sweetness of the moment morphed into heat as she looked up at him.
He might not recognize her from the club, but her body recognized every inch of his big frame. Her nipples beaded instantly, and she was glad she was wearing a padded bra beneath her ivory blouse.
Her childish crush on him had been based on nothing but his kindness and her journey into puberty. But what was happening now was built on torrid, sexy memories that raced along her skin. Her belly pulsed back and forth like the shoulder blades of a jungle cat preparing to pounce. And she wanted to pounce. Her whole body purred at the idea of being in his arms again.
Could he feel the sizzle that had taken up residence beneath her skin, or was the heat only flowing one way?
He leaned close so she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, and her heart stuttered an SOS, even as her chin notched up involuntarily to bring their lips into alignment. “Line’s moving.”
She released the exhalation stuck in her chest in a disappointed sigh as she stepped up to the counter. “I’ll have a vanilla latte, please.”
“Can I get a name for the cup?”
“Kaylee,” she started to say, but before she got to the second syllable, Aidan stepped close behind her, and the dazzled barista stared distractedly over Kaylee’s shoulder.
“You can add a black coffee to that.”
Aidan handed her a couple of bills before Kaylee managed to retrieve her wallet.
“Oh! You don’t have to pay.” Kaylee dug into her purse. “I can...”
Aidan’s fingertips brushed her wrist to still her hand, and her voice trailed off. Her pulse fluttered madly beneath her skin. “Your money’s no good here, right...” He spared a glance at the smitten barista’s name tag before adding, “Tanis?”
The girl nodded dreamily. Kaylee was pretty sure Aidan could have said, This is a stickup—empty the till into this bag or I’ll kill everyone in here, and still gotten the same reaction. Seeing it reminded her that she wasn’t a teenager anymore and went a long way toward making her feel more like herself. She tucked a wayward strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Thanks.”
“Least I can do. It’s been a while.”
Two frustratingly horny days, her body reminded her. “Um, almost ten years, I guess?”
It wasn’t a guess. She knew. Aside from Lola Mariposa, in the storage room, with Aidan’s candlestick, she’d been seventeen the last time she saw him, freshly graduated and all packed and on her way to study at Oxford. Her crush on him had cooled by that point—no sense in pining over someone who would never see you as anything more than a kid sister—but that hadn’t kept her from reveling in the goodbye they’d shared.
“You got this, KJ,” he’d said in a way that made her believe him. And then Aidan had hugged her. The only hug she’d received. Max hadn’t. Her mom and dad hadn’t. And for a scared seventeen-year-old leaving her home for the first time, that hug had buoyed her courage, as though being wrapped in his arms had transferred some of his strength to her, some of his wanderlust.
It was a moment that had meant the world.
It was nice thinking someone believed in her.
“So what have you been up to?” he asked.
“University, grown-up job, the usual stuff,” she averred. She didn’t want to bring up anything that might ruin their easy camaraderie. Besides, she wasn’t exactly sure how Aidan and her brother had turned into mortal enemies. It was safer to steer the conversation away from her PR position at the company named after her family and run by her brother.
Aidan shot her a look that said he had other ideas. “Nope. Not buying it, Ms. Public Relations. This is a no-spin zone, so stop being modest and tell me about how you’re putting that fancy Oxford education to use nowadays.”
The realization that he remembered her major and her alma mater combined with the interest on his handsome face edged the lust in her belly with a sweetness she hadn’t expected. Maybe that was why she still didn’t mention Whitfield Industries by name, just left it hanging like a guillotine blade, hoping it wouldn’t sever this thread of...something that was pulsing between them.
“Mostly I write media releases and deal with questions from the press. And every now and then a scandal breaks out and things get interesting.” The words fell out of her mouth without her meaning them to, and the sharp pain of the current situation knifed through
