Off Limits (6 page)

The buzz of his phone jolted him out of his thoughts, and he glanced down at the display. For a split second he hoped it would be Paige, reading him the riot act he deserved.

But it was worse—Adam’s name glared from the screen.

Fuck.

He swallowed, took a deep breath and answered. “Hey, man.”

“Hey, ladies’ night at Queenie’s tonight.”

Zach’s stomach unknotted momentarily as he realized Adam hadn’t learned about him and Paige. No, who was he kidding? If Adam found out, he’d march down here and personally rip Zach’s dick off. After relief—or something like it—set in, he could focus on Adam’s invitation. The last thing he wanted was to see Adam face to face. The minute his friend looked at him, he’d know. Zach wasn’t accustomed to keeping secrets from his best friend, but his life kinda depended on him keeping this one.

“Yeah, I’m not really up for it.” Even as he said it, he knew the words sounded lame.

“What the hell? Not
up
for it?” Adam’s question was a taunt. “Since when? We’re talking Queenie’s, with the prettiest girls in the city.”

“Yeah, not—” He cleared his throat. “May be coming down with something.”

“Fuck. You’ve met somebody. The last time you were too sick to go out, you were banging that Jill chick from your office.”

Zach winced. The downside to a lifelong friendship was that your friend knew every secret, and worse, knew when you were lying. Still, he tried. “Yeah, no, not this time. I just need to get out of here and get some rest. And, you know, not spread my germs all over Queenie’s.”

“Right. Whatever. But if I hook up with two ladies, you have to listen to every detail.”

Zach disconnected and sat back in his chair, dragging his hands down his face. He had a reprieve.

Only not going out meant staying in. Zach couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. His apartment was great, the best tech, comfortable stylish furniture, but despite its spaciousness, he felt boxed in with his thoughts.

Mostly about Paige, mostly about last night, each aspect running through his mind with the commentary of a Monday-morning quarterback. How sexy she’d been, how soft, how willing, and what a dick he’d been.

He should call and apologize. If she hung up on him, well, he’d have tried, right? She hadn’t deserved to be treated like that, and maybe if he knew he’d never see her again, he’d have let it go. But he would be seeing her again at the commitment ceremony, so best to clear the air now, let her tear into him in private instead of in front of her whole family.

With that in mind, he picked up his car keys. Seeing her face to face could have its complications—like projectiles thrown at his head—but it might make her feel better.

And part of him wanted to see her really, really pissed.

His good intentions fled when she opened the door. Surprise flitted across her face, followed by pleasure. When a smile started to curve her lips, all bets were off. He cupped her head in his hand as he brought his mouth down to hers. The taste of her flooded his senses—she’d been drinking wine, and the sharp taste combined with her softer one. He let his desire carry him through the door, bumping them both into a table and knocking things over, lifting her onto it and pressing his hips between her knees to part them, needing to get closer.

Only then did he register the distressed sound to his right. Not from Paige, who was clutching his shoulders and kissing him back, but from a short distance away. He released Paige’s mouth and reluctantly turned his head to find the source.

A small girl, maybe four or five years old, stood in her nightgown at the end of the hallway with her finger in her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks. Paige came to her senses and shoved his shoulders. He stepped back to release her, and she pushed past him to go to the child, who she swept up in her arms, one hand cradling, the other soothing, stroking the curly reddish-brown hair.

“Oh, sweetie, I thought you were watching TV. It’s okay.”

Seeing Paige comfort the child brought a deeper ache to his gut. Something he’d never felt before and wouldn’t even know how to name.

“He wasn’t hurting me, CeCe. It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t cry.” She bounced the child in her arms as Zach tried to reason out what had happened here.

“Is she yours?” he managed, taking in the curly hair on both females, though CeCe’s was softer and lighter.

She looked at him. Irritation darkened her eyes and hardened the line of her lips. “My roommate’s daughter.” She kept her tone soft, for the child, he imagined.

He moved toward her, stretching a hand out, though he wasn’t sure what he could do to comfort the girl. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare her. I was just thinking—”

“I know what you were thinking.”

Yep, definitely irritated. He let his arm fall to his side. “I didn’t know.”

“You might have thought about whether or not I was alone before you charged in here.” Still that soothing tone that didn’t mask the bite of her words. She set the child down, but the girl still clung to Paige’s leg, her baleful attention on Zach. “You might have thought about your welcome.”

A grin hooked up the corner of his mouth, though he saw right away that was a mistake. Paige narrowed her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I was—stupid.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Elaborate, please.”

He’d come here to make his mea culpas, and probably should have started with that, instead of the lip-lock when he walked in. But the words he’d planned to say had been shoved back by the kiss. “I’m sorry I left you alone. That wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“I imagine you do it a lot, though. Wait until the girl goes to sleep, then slip out?”

He winced. “Usually the sleeping part doesn’t come into play,” he said, since he’d chosen honesty. “We part after the—activities.” He cast a cautious look at CeCe, who still glared at him. Hopefully she couldn’t follow this conversation.

“And?”

Right. And. “I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have barged in. Anything else I shouldn’t have done?”

“You shouldn’t have brought that attitude.”

He sighed. “All right. I’m sorry. A lot. I should have said goodbye. I should have called.”

“But you didn’t because—?”

“Because I don’t. I don’t stay, I don’t get involved. I tried to tell you, so why were you surprised?” He hated the defensive tone in his own voice. He’d come here to apologize, not defend his actions, definitely not to turn it around on her.

Paige tossed her hair back over her shoulders, her hand moving over the girl’s small back. “You’re here,” she pointed out.

He was here. He could have called but he’d come over. And worse, he’d kissed her, let the hunger he’d been feeling since he left the hotel room take over his sense of self-preservation. The best thing to do was to say his piece, let her rake him over the coals some more, and get the hell out. Then it would be over. But he couldn’t make himself move toward the door.

She looked past him to the entryway table, with its tumbled picture frames and the mail dumped on the floor. “That’s why you came?”

He bent to scoop the mail off the floor and stacked it neatly on the table before setting the frames to rights. Pictures of CeCe, mostly, with a lovely blonde who must be her mother. One of Paige with her brothers that had Zach swallowing.

“You didn’t come because you think I’m going to tell Adam, did you?”

He snapped his gaze to hers. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him, but she probably wouldn’t believe that. “Of course not. You’re not ten years old anymore.”

She eyed him as if she didn’t quite believe him. “What are you going to do to make it up to me?”

He cast a teasing glance at the table where he’d kissed her.

She frowned and jammed her hand on her hip. Sexiest thing he’d ever seen. But the message was clear. Fat chance. Something rose up in him that completely erased his need to escape. Something stronger than his long-ingrained need to protect his privacy. But it wasn’t just desire, either. It was foreign to him.

“Are you free for dinner?” The question surprised him the minute it was out of his mouth.

Her eyes widened, letting him know she hadn’t expected it, either. “It’s after eight. And I’m babysitting.”

“Right.” He looked from the suspicious child to the equally suspicious woman. “When are you done?”

“Her mom works until two. So a while.”

“Ah.” He backed toward the still-open door. His chance to escape, though it no longer had the same appeal. “Tomorrow?”

She ushered the child into the room behind her—the living room, he reasoned—and cocked a hip. “You came here to see me, right? Otherwise you’d just have called.”

His defenses went up. He didn’t want her to look too closely at his motivations, especially when he wasn’t sure what they were. And yes, he had wanted to see her again, to remind himself what a bad idea his continuing fantasies were. “If I didn’t think you’d hang up on me. Or ignore the phone altogether.”

“Then stay.”

Panic tripped his pulse. He glanced past her to the room where the kid had disappeared. “Help you babysit?” That sounded so damned domestic.

“You can’t tell me you’ve never done that before.”

“Oh, I definitely have.” Years ago, with Becky Turner, the girl who gave him his first blowjob. Not that he thought Paige would do the same, but the possibility of it, the idea of being near her held more appeal than he wanted to admit. He closed the door and moved nearer. Before he could touch her, and God, he ached to touch her, she spun and entered the room after CeCe. The little girl was curled up on the deep-green sofa in the cozy little room, and held up a DVD case for Paige. Paige took it and loaded the player beneath a small flat-screen TV.

“Just fifteen minutes, okay? It’s past your bedtime.”

As Paige got the child comfortable, Zach looked around. The furnishings were modern, if modest, the wall behind the couch painted a soothing creamed-coffee color, and iron accents decorated the room. The signs of a kid living here were the collection of G-rated movies in the black cabinet beneath the TV and the pile of pillows and stuffed animals on the floor.

“Does she talk?” He eyed the girl with the same wariness she eyed him.

“Of course she talks. Just not to strangers. CeCe, this is my friend Zach. He’s not a bad guy.”

“So why are you mad at him?” CeCe asked around the fingers in her mouth.

“Because he doesn’t make good decisions. Just like Mommy gets mad at you when you do something you know you shouldn’t do.”

CeCe’s frown deepened. “What did he do?”

Zach watched Paige as she thought about how to explain his mistakes to a little kid.

“He broke a promise.”

Huh. He didn’t see that coming. What promise?

“What promise?” CeCe echoed his thoughts.

Paige flushed. “Your movie’s starting.” She settled on the couch and Zach crossed to sit beside her, not as easily distracted.

“What promise?”

“Not spoken,” she said, her gaze on the TV. “But you know what you did.”

“I’m sorry, Paige. I acted on impulse.”

She turned to him. “Why? Did you think Adam had a tracking device on me and he was going to storm in at any minute?”

“I don’t know.” He passed a hand over his hair and rested his elbow on his knees.

She wasn’t completely satisfied, he could tell by the set of her lips. She turned away, hugging a pillow to her. He wished he was that pillow. He had a lot of groveling to do first before she’d let him that close again. If tonight showed him anything, it was that he wanted back in her bed. And if he was going to do that…he was opening himself up to a relationship. Funny how sitting on the couch with her curled beside him didn’t make that seem like such a bad thing. While he was content with his life, he wasn’t a man who sought comfort. But here with Paige he could see the benefits of it, if he was another kind of man. She was a woman who wanted a relationship, and he was a man who avoided them.

As the animated movie turned to a live-action film, he reached over to touch one of Paige’s curls, half-expecting her to swat his hand away. Instead, she allowed it for a moment, then angled her head to break the contact. But she didn’t chase him out, and fifteen minutes later, she made good on her bargain. CeCe argued, but only a little, as Paige shut off the TV, bent to wrap the girl’s arms around her neck and lifted her from the floor.

That sensation again, like hunger, but not. Something primal but unrecognizable.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Zach, and slipped into the other room.

After a few minutes—was she singing? Maybe reading—she emerged and sat on the couch beside him, closer this time, and swept her hair over her shoulder, exposing that gorgeous throat. Did she know the invitation she was sending? He rested his arm over the cushion of the couch behind her, and she didn’t move away. Okay, she knew.

“I’m sorry, Paige,” he murmured, and with his finger under her chin, tilted her mouth up to meet his.

He kept the kiss sweet, his lips fitting over hers, taking her soft sigh into his mouth as their mouths moved together in a gentle rhythm, nothing like his greeting at the door, just following the shape of her lips, ignoring the tentative caress of her tongue, focusing on the kind of kiss they might see if they watched CeCe’s movie to the end.

Paige shifted, cupping the back of his head. She slanted her lips over his, parting them, her tongue teasing, drawing his out. He deepened the kiss, turning to press her against the back of the couch. Her touch moved restlessly over his shoulders and along his spine, and he parted her thighs with his knee, ready to press against the heat of her body.

Just like that, she broke the kiss. “I think you should probably go now.”

His hormones soaked that in, his gaze moving from her mouth to her eyes. Okay. Not kidding. He eased away, trying to convince his erection that nothing was happening tonight. He drew a deep breath, one arm braced on the arm of the couch as he studied their reflection in the dark TV screen.

“Right,” he said when it didn’t appear she was going to change her mind. “Okay.” He stood and wiped his palms down the front of his jeans. “Are you free for dinner tomorrow?”