Ross 01 Unleashed (7 page)

“Thank you, Evan. I will.” She looked him in the eye, and her sincerity and embarrassment tugged him in all the right places. He felt for her. He couldn’t stand being sick in other people’s presence, either.

Closing the door behind him, he thought about what he’d gotten himself into. If one night with her had him in such pitiful shape, one week might very well kill him.

Damn. She’d been something else last night. He didn’t think he could put himself through it again. If it had been the truth…shit, what he wouldn’t give to see Kelsey like that, crazed and begging him for it, out of her mind with lust for him without alcohol sharpening those base urges. Why the hell did they have to have so much history in the way? He was torn between the guilt of touching her at all and the insanity of wishing he’d spent all damn night in her silky heat. So that she wouldn’t have to go home today not knowing about that one sweet interlude.

He wanted her to tell him
sober
what she had admitted to so freely last night.

Chapter Four

Evan had always thought he’d never seen Kelsey look more beautiful than on her wedding day. He’d stood beside Todd and watched her slow approach, a dream in white, lacking only wings to complete the angelic image she’d made. If his jaw had been clenched in misery and his hands nearly shaking, no one noticed, because all eyes had been on her, and hers on Todd.

As best man Evan had stood in support of the union, toasted the bride and groom to a lifetime of happiness and laughed and danced with Kelsey and her bridesmaids…all the while suffering from an aching void where his heart once resided. A gnawing ache that perhaps he’d let a good thing slip right through his fingers. He’d witnessed the girl he should never have let get away vow to love his best friend, till death—or Courtney, as it turned out—parted them.

Today, it was all made right. She might have been a soft, ethereal vision on her wedding day binding herself to another man, but out here beneath the kiss of the Hawaiian sun, she was a bronzed goddess, and just for now, she was all his.

“This is
amazing
,” she groaned from her prone position on a beach towel in the sand. Her voice was almost carnal, causing stirrings it wouldn’t do for Evan to exhibit in public. He’d made it through rubbing lotion over her silken back, so he could make it through her well-contented purrs. She turned her face toward him. “Thank you so much for this.”

She was thanking
him
when she was wearing that bikini?

The wind blew in off the jewel-blue waves as he let his gaze roam freely over her: the tossed curls of her dark brown ponytail, the clean lines of her oiled body glistening in the sun, the swelling curve of her ass hidden under a triangular scrap of pink and white fabric. This was really the most he’d ever seen of her body, but he could tell she still hadn’t begun to replace the weight she’d lost since the divorce, weight she really couldn’t afford to lose in the first place. It didn’t matter to him how she looked—he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t thought she was ravishing. But it never failed to start the slow burn of anger to think she’d been so stressed and hurt that she hadn’t been taking care of herself like she should.

If her storm-gray eyes were open behind the dark sunglasses she wore, she could see he was looking at her. But his own blacked-out shades hid exactly where he was looking.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” he told her. “Like I said, you deserve it.”

Her lips curled as the wind cast one tendril from her ponytail across her face. She swiped it away, lifting her head and propping herself on her elbows. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the way her generous breasts stretched her bikini top in that position. Just one hook of his finger and he could finally know the color of their luscious tips……

“What are we doing tonight?” she asked, a weighted question if ever there was one.

“You want to just take it easy? Hang out?” he asked. Their flight had landed Sunday afternoon and it was Tuesday. Yesterday they’d hiked to the Diamond Head crater and marveled at the breathtaking panorama around them. He’d seen it before, but Kelsey’s enthusiasm had been so infectious it was almost like seeing it for the first time. Today, they’d just wanted to laze out on the beach. Thank God she was a more laid-back vacationer. He hated to come home from a trip more exhausted than when he’d left—what was the point then? But there was a lot more he wanted to show her.

Against her tan, her teeth were dazzlingly white. “Sure. I could use a drink, though.”

Oh…
hell
. He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and shot her a look. She laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t pass out on you again. We’re on vacation, right? Just a couple of margaritas.”

“Sure, that we can manage. Sounds good to me, too. Then we can come back in and order room service.”

“Ahhh. Divine.”

He grinned at her and sent up probably the hundredth prayer of thanks that he was here with Kelsey and not his ex on some sham of a honeymoon. Courtney could probably make some guy a happy man one day… She was smart and beautiful, certainly no fluff piece of arm candy. She was his younger brother’s age but already ran her own business—a downtown boutique his mom frequented—and it was there he’d met her for the first time. His mother still couldn’t convince him there weren’t ulterior motives involved the day she called and asked him if he’d stop by the store and pay on her account. Courtney had been working that day. He’d asked her out on the spot. His mom knew him too well.

She’d managed to fit right in with his sometimes overwhelming, boisterous family. But like all the others, she just wasn’t the one for him. Though she’d perhaps come closest.

He often wondered if they’d have made it to the altar even if she hadn’t been unfaithful. She’d presented him with an easy out, and he’d pounced on it. He wondered what Kelsey would say when she heard Courtney and Todd had split up.

Ordinarily, Evan wouldn’t have given a damn what happened to Todd Jacobs. He wouldn’t have wasted a single thought on the bastard if there hadn’t been ramifications for Kelsey. If Courtney was to be believed, any day now Todd could come crawling back to Kelsey. The thought made his blood seethe. He wanted to talk to her about it, ask her how she felt…but she was having too much fun to dredge up that stuff, and he figured if he asked her she would give an answer that was automatic instead of genuine. But if,
if
Todd showed up at her door…would she listen to his excuses and take him back?

Evan didn’t think so, but he didn’t know. She seemed to carry a lot of guilt over the fact that her marriage had failed, regardless that it was not of her doing. Guilt could be a bitch of a motivator.

Kelsey followed him in for a quick dip in the waves before they collected their beach gear and headed for their ridiculously lavish suite. His parents certainly hadn’t spared any expense, probably a testament to how desperate they were to marry him off.

But it seemed nothing could stop the intrusion of reality. For the second day in a row, there was a frantic message from Evan’s legal assistant waiting on his BlackBerry.

He cursed when he saw the number, and Kelsey laughed. “Duty calls, even in paradise,” she said, patting him on the shoulder as she slipped past him into the bathroom…surely to shower all that sand from her glistening body. God, how he’d love to do it, he thought as he reluctantly called his assistant’s personal cell to see what the hell had blown up at the office. Given the four-hour time difference, everyone would be home by now.

Even as Delilah finished updating him and started jabbering in his ear about God knew what, his mind kept going back to the image of Kelsey standing naked under the spray, her hands all over her body as she rinsed away the banana-scented oil adhering the grains of beach sand to her skin. And him running his tongue along her tan lines. Jesus. His cock began to swell inside his swimming trunks. If she came out now…
Shit
. He needed to go check baseball scores or something, anything to get those pictures out of his head.

He wiped his fingers hard over his eyes. “Delilah, I have to go. You guys have a good week. Call me if anything else comes up.”

Plenty had come up here. Evan cut her off without waiting for a reply and drew a breath, resisting the urge to adjust himself because it would probably only make the situation worse to touch it. He sat hard on the bed and collapsed back on the mattress.

Not helping matters was his nearly undeniable suspicion Kelsey had masturbated right here in the bed next to him last night, thinking him asleep. He had been mindfucked on that one, a grown man not knowing what the hell to do with the enflamed,
sober
female next to him—turn over and help her out at the risk of embarrassing the hell out of his longtime friend, or let her finish, only to have to creep into the bathroom and take care of himself after she was asleep.

Like a dumbass, he’d chosen the latter. The thought of her fingertips slipping through her wet folds with gentle urgency, the memory of what it had felt like when he’d done the same, had his dick throbbing now like a smashed thumb. He wondered if it was him she fantasized about touching her as she came silently next to him. If she would’ve liked it if he
had
turned over and replaced her fingers with his own. If she’d have begged him to push his cock into her pussy, already wet and ready for him. If she would’ve cried his name into the darkness as she climaxed in his arms, no more need for silence.

Ten years ago there wouldn’t have been a question. The girl had carried her soul in her eyes. She only had to look at him back then and he knew she could be his for the taking. But the sweetness and innocence he’d loved in her as a friend had been the very things that kept him away.

He’d been a double major in political science and criminal justice, president of too many damn clubs and honor societies to remember, all to bulk up his law school apps. He’d been a social animal, but he hadn’t had time for anything more than superficial, shallow relationships with girls he knew were just passing through his life. He hadn’t wanted to get derailed by love. And Kelsey, he knew, would have damn well derailed him. One taste of her and he feared he would have wandered around lost in a euphoric fog.

He hadn’t been thinking fate would step in to keep her in his life all these years. But it had, and even worse, Kelsey’s gray eyes had cooled over that time. Nothing there gave him any indication whether she still felt anything for him, just one drunken confession he wasn’t entirely sure if he should believe or not. He was praying for s
omething
in there to reveal itself in the light of day, to let him know she really was susceptible to him.

Her giving in to a physical need and getting herself off within arm’s reach of him still wasn’t enough…too much was at risk. She was driving him crazy, just like she always had. Why did their timing always have to be so off? If she still wasn’t over Todd, he didn’t want to get caught up in that baggage no matter what he felt for her.

Their friendship was far too precious for him to throw caution to the wind and offer her everything, only for her to leave him when her ex-husband showed up at her door full of apologies and promises.

Kelsey wiped the steam from the mirror with her towel and stared at her reflection. Her skin was flushed from the heat of her shower…or the wild sexual heat she’d been in ever since Evan showed up at her door to sweep her away to paradise.

“You’re in a mess,” she informed herself quietly, as if she didn’t already know. The very mess she’d anticipated. Sighing, she grabbed her hairdryer, flipped her hair over and began to blow it dry.

She didn’t want any more nights like last night and the one before. Upon first arrival Evan had offered to take the sofa in the living room, but she’d felt wretched about that, being this was his trip—his should-be
honeymoon
, she reminded herself. She’d offered to take it herself, and he flat refused. So lying next to him in what seemed like acres of bed, yearning for him yet unable to touch him, had twisted a dagger through her heart. She wanted to be in his arms, those strong, lean-muscled arms…and it was the very place she didn’t need to go.

But damn, how her fantasies had evolved. In college they’d been filled with mushy romance and gentleness. Now, lying there eyeing the strong contours of his body next to her, all she could think about was him crawling over her, kneeing apart her thighs and pounding into her aching pussy like he owned it. Whispering in her ear things that were feverish and forbidden in between groans and wet, devouring kisses.

The images were so vivid given his nearness that she could almost feel him inside her. Which led to her own fingers seeking out the damp longing between her legs and trying to soothe that emptiness, if only superficially. Only he would be able to eradicate it for her altogether. She almost wished he would catch her in the naughty act. Almost.

Oh, God. She wondered what he would do if she worked up the nerve to just walk out of the bathroom naked and jump him. Drag him to bed. Have her way with him.

Stop!
This was
Evan
. Best man at her wedding, as her mother had so graciously pointed out. How wrong was that?

Sighing, she switched off her hairdryer and quickly dressed. She knew he would be waiting to shower, so she didn’t take any time to straighten her hair. The Hawaiian humidity would have its way with it anyway, tossing it into wild curls no matter what measures she took to prevent it.

She’d go easy on the drinks tonight for sure. One more drunken fantasy as vivid as the dream she’d had at his house that night and she’d be lost. Just thinking about it made the roots of her hair tingle, and in her dream he’d done nothing but touch her…and look at her like she was the most beautiful, precious sight on earth.

That, she thought, had been the sweetest thing of all.

“Truth or dare!” Kelsey laughed hysterically, drawing glances from other patrons in the bar off the opulent lobby. She knew her and Evan’s reminiscing was overriding the quiet, laid-back buzz of conversation around them, but she didn’t care.