“I needed out. That movie…”
When he didn’t say more, she felt compelled to add something. “I’d never seen it before. My grandparents didn’t let me out much and probably thought I was too young when it was showing.”
“It had a bit of a racy rep, what with that scene when she pulls her bra out of her sleeve and the new kid counters by dragging his jock strap from one leg of his shorts.”
“About that—”
“Impossible,” he said. “Pure movie magic.”
“Good to know.”
They sat in silence, and she was exhorting herself to get moving once more when he spoke again. “You watched the whole thing?”
“Yes.”
A long, weighty silence, one that made her squirm. Finally, he spoke again. “What did you think of it?”
Him
, she thought. Joaquin wanted to know what she thought of his brother. Drawing up her knees, she wrapped her arms around them. “Clearly Felipe was a very talented actor.”
“24-karat charisma, our father always said. More magnetism in his pinky finger than in my… Well, never mind.”
But Sara did mind—and she didn’t agree. Clearly their father treated his older son like the golden child while not giving the younger one any credit. She figured Joaquin would wow the world if he’d ever directed that smolder she’d seen in him toward a camera.
“Did you get along with your brother?” she asked, curious. Would the second son have resented the favored one? Then she realized how personal the question and how nosy she sounded. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business—”
“I wanted to be like him in all things,” Joaquin said flatly, but the tone was raw. Pained. “And then I wanted to be nothing like him at all.”
Sara tried swallowing the sudden lump in her throat. There was a new chill to the air, too, and a pair of shivers chased down her spine.
Joaquin’s arm came around her.
She stiffened. “I don’t think—”
“You’re chilled,” he said, rubbing his hand along her outer arm in brisk movements. “And my dick is so cold it’s shriveled—and consequently no threat to you.”
Her head turned and she stared at him, exasperated.
“What?”
“I don’t know what to say to you,” Sara told him. “Managing a conversation revolving around shriveled genitalia is not covered in the academy textbook.”
For a long moment he was silent, but then laughter erupted, and he abruptly fell over, clutching his stomach. This went on for a time.
“Stop,” she finally scolded though he was still wheezing. “I don’t want to be accused of having caused you an appendicitis attack.”
He slowly sat up, a chuckle breaking out now and then as he continued to catch his breath. “Is that…is hilarity a cause of that?”
Her spine straightened. “I’m a butler, not a medical practitioner.”
Joaquin shook his head. “You’re doing it again. Using that accent.”
“I’m safe because you’re shriveled,” she pointed out.
Reaching up, he rubbed his jaw, the
scratch-scratch
sound of his whiskers audible in the quiet night. “It’s possible I lied about that…or maybe it’s all the LOL-ing that’s got my blood moving again.”
It was so dark she couldn’t see the expression on his face, but she could hear the tone of his voice and in it was something besides amusement. Something that sent her heart pumping harder in her chest. Something that dried her spit.
Sara tried recalling his three reasons they shouldn’t sleep together.
Had there been three? And why couldn’t she think of one hundred herself?
“LOL?” she managed to say repressively. “You actually say LOL?”
“The sixteen-year-old’s been texting me.”
The sixteen-year-old! There were three of them, left alone in the house. Sara jumped to her feet, a butler reminded of her duties.
Thank you, sweet baby Jesus!
“We need to get back to Essie and her friends.” Before he could respond she was jogging up the beach.
No calamity had occurred in their absence, Sara deduced, once she and Joaquin made their way inside. As a matter of fact, all seemed silent from the second floor, telling her that the teen party was over. Joaquin walked up the stairs and then back down to report that their doors were closed and no sound came from behind them.
“RJ’s definitely asleep in his bed. I checked.”
“That’s good, then,” she said, watching him cross to test the locks on the front door and turn off the foyer light as she slipped off her jacket.
Then he moved to the back of the house and started flipping off more switches until the great room was dark and there only came the glow from the kitchen.
She knew he was looking for his phone when he slapped at his front pockets.
Sara pointed in the direction of the chair where he’d been seated when
New Kid
began. “There. The table there.”
On long strides, he made his way to it, then scooped up the device. She saw the screen blaze to life and his fingers swipe to check his messages. He froze.
It was the kind of freeze that spoke of big news—maybe the dire kind. She felt tension and emotion infuse the air, making it heavy. Her fingers curled into her palms as she continued to watch him, his gaze still glued to his phone.
Then she couldn’t stand the pressure any longer. “What is it?” she heard herself ask, her voice sounding tinny. “What’s happened?”
His head came up, and she couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light. “It’s Essie.”
Her stomach clutched. “She’s not upstairs? Something’s happened?” Her brain began throwing up possibilities and throwing out solutions. She had first aid supplies on hand. Surely Joaquin could be counted on for cash. “Do we need to call 911? Or a bail bondsman? I have a name of two reliable ones in the estate binder…”
He still wasn’t looking at her.
“Joaquin, what
is
it?”
“She loves me.” His hand came up to turn the phone’s screen Sara’s way. “Essie texted me to tell me she loves me.”
Sudden tears crawled up Sara’s throat, forcing her to swallow them back. “That’s…wonderful,” she whispered.
Wonderful.
He sat heavily on the chair he’d vacated earlier and his head dropped back. “God.”
The one syllable drew Sara toward him. She took a seat on the coffee table, their knees almost touching. “You’re okay with it, right?” she asked.
His head didn’t move and his eyes remained closed. “The girl doesn’t even know me.”
“She knows you’re her big brother.”
“Yeah.” With his free hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m her big brother.”
Then Sara drew in a breath and threw away all thought of distance and professionalism and the metaphorical butler’s rulebook. “Joaquin, what happened to Felipe?”
Later, she supposed she could have looked it up on the internet. But he didn’t tell the tale with much more emotion than was delivered by pixels on a screen. She learned of a talented young man, driven to taste all that big money and new fame could offer him. They’d been a band of buddies, Felipe, Joaquin, and another young actor, Mick Hastings, but there wasn’t a cool head in the group.
And Sara had thought, how could there be, when they were sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and not a single person had ever said “no” to them?
Finally, for Felipe, months of combining drugs and alcohol had led to a single night at an infamous L.A. nightclub. Joaquin had received the call his brother was in trouble, and he’d broken speed limits to reach him, only to find Felipe convulsing in the hall by the bathrooms, and then turning blue. When the paramedics arrived, he’d flat-lined. The coroner pronounced him dead of cardiac arrest brought on by acute multiple-drug intoxication.
At the end of the recitation, Joaquin pulled in a long breath. “Just like that, he was gone.”
Sara didn’t know how her knees found the strength to hold her up, but she managed to make it to her feet. Her skin felt chilled, her insides hollowed-out, and though she’d only watched ninety minutes of that beautiful young man strutting across the screen, grinning and cocky and so
alive
, she felt…wrecked.
Joaquin glanced up at her as she stood before him. “You’re going to bed?”
The place she’d been heading for tonight several times already. Solo. But now she reached for Joaquin’s hand to tug him to a stand.
The heat that always sparked when they touched coursed up her arm. She let it burn away all her doubts.
“
We’re
going to bed,” she said. “Together.”
Chapter 7
Joaquin’s surprise at Sara’s offer kept him silent on the short journey to her rooms. She didn’t let go of his hand, and he stared at their linked fingers, hers so small and strong. At the entry to her quarters, she didn’t hesitate to cross the threshold, pulling him with her.
As the door swung shut behind them, he breathed in air that smelled delicious—and so like his butler.
His butler
. He groaned and, pulling his hand from hers, stepped back so that his shoulder blades hit solid wood. Then he scrubbed his palms over his face, trying to think. Minutes before when he’d told her about Felipe, she’d been quiet and still, her big eyes trained on him, full of sympathy. “Tell me this isn’t a pity fuck.”
“No,” she said, her voice soft. “It’s about my beating heart.”
The large room was dark except for the glow of a lamp beside the bed, and its light outlined her small body in gold. She took hold of his hand again and pressed his palm to the middle of her chest, just above the rise of her breasts.
It throbbed against his flesh, and he couldn’t stop himself from shifting his fingers to test the pulse at her throat, too. He could feel the blood moving under her skin, the fast rhythm of it making his own redouble. Alive. They were both alive.
“Then it’s about the burn in my veins, too.” He turned them so her back was to the door and he pressed in to her. “It’s about your sweet mouth.”
Her lips opened beneath the onslaught of his, and he speared one hand into her hair, the soft strands tickling the inner surface of his fingers as he deepened the kiss. It tasted like he remembered, hot and honeyed.
He supposed going forward wasn’t smart. Even if she denied offering him a pity fuck, there couldn’t be any doubt it was a human-kindness fuck. But hell, he needed her touch.
Breaking the kiss, he buried his face in the curve between her neck and shoulder and breathed in the fragrance of her skin. His body hummed with tension, still at war between right and want.
Her hands drifted up his back. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering about you. If you are intending this to also be about a catharsis or a diversion or a balm to my raw feelings.”
He inhaled another deep breath of her.
She fisted her hand in his hair and tugged back his head.
Jesus, just a look at her face could twist him up inside. The long sweep of her bangs framing its triangle shape, drawing his attention to those lushly lashed eyes, so big that he could dive inside their blue and lose himself.
“Joaquin,” she said, in the tone that was a mix of censure and sugar, the one that drove him mad. “You’re wrong on all counts.”
On tiptoe, she rose to press her lips to his. “It’s simple. What it’s most about is now.”
Oh.
Oh, yeah.
The battle within quieted as he turned from the past and threw away concerns about the future. At this moment Sara was warm and willing and within his arms, and his lust was ready to take over the show. Now.
Now
.
Sliding his hands to her ass, he tucked her hips closer to his. Anticipation built inside him like the pressure in a steam engine, and he took over the kiss, feasting. It was about this damn moment and nothing else but the two of them in it, reveling in the fact they were living, breathing sexual creatures.
He hoisted her up, forcing her legs around his hips and her hemline to rise. She made a surprised noise, and he broke the kiss as he strode for the bed.
“Fair warning, doll,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “Now means no holds barred. Now doesn’t mean a soft seduction or a gentle bounce on the sheets.”
He let go, dropping her on the mattress to stand over her, his legs braced, his arms crossed over his chest. She stared at him, her skirt still rucked up to expose a tiny glimpse of her blue lace panties at the vee of her thighs. Her face was flushed, her hair tousled, and Joaquin didn’t think she was breathing.
He continued to lay it out for her. “Now means you might get it just a little bit rough—maybe even a little bit raunchy.”
Though she squirmed against the spread, she definitely wasn’t breathing now.
His lips spread in a feral grin. “You’re gonna get more than a little dirty. Is my butler all right with that?”
Instead of answering, she lifted up, fisted his shirt in her small hand, and yanked him down. Joaquin fell over her, one forearm going to the bed beside her head so Sara didn’t take his full weight. Then he was kissing her again, eating at her mouth, his tongue aggressive, his blood on fire.
Her hands gripped his waist then snaked beneath his shirt. He shuddered at the soft, sleek feel of her skin on his.
“God!” He jerked his head away, turning it to suck in harsh breaths.
“I need more,” he muttered, and whipped the loose fabric over his head. It sailed into a corner of the room, and then he looked down at her, his chest heaving.
Her mouth was parted, her lips swollen and red.
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
She lifted a shaking hand, running her fingertips from his collarbone to his belly, the strokes like a brand searing him to the bone. He caught her hand and placed it palm down on the bed. The other he treated the same, then he reached for the tiny buttons marching down the black-and-white dress. With each slice of skin his actions revealed his dick went that much harder, until his fingers seemed to have lost all blood and could only fumble. Frustrated, as he neared the bottom of the dress he just yanked the two sides apart, the fasteners pinging as they hit targets he couldn’t see.
Because Sara’s body consumed his vision.
Her bare skin glowed like a pearl in the low light. Modest bikini panties in a dark blue lace were matched by a pretty bra that cupped her sweet breasts. He groaned, unable to decide where to start first.