Page 15 of Take Me Tender

With a gasp, she broke their kiss. “Jay.”

He tugged again, his mouth wet against the side of her neck, and she moaned. Jay stilled, then gently freed his finger from the string.

“Nikki. We need to talk a minute.” His hands cupped her shoulders and squeezed. “Look, you’ve gotta see…You’ve gotta realize this isn’t going to work.”

Her lashes shot up as panic dashed over her like icy water. What? What did he mean? This had to work. She didn’t have another employment prospect, she had a pile of bills, and this job was supposed to tide her over as well as provide her with new contacts.

But he’d taken her on, assuming her sexual interest was girls, and that fact would keep his kitchen uncomplicated. Now, though, she’d messed that up by making out with him.

Taking a hasty step back, she wiped away his stupid, drugging kiss with the back of her hand. It was all his fault. He was too good—too golden, too tender, too subtle and sneaky where most men were in-your-face and blatantly aggressive.

Below, the front door swung open. Fern ambled in, her gaze traveling upward to find the two of them at the top of the stairs. Jay turned toward his cousin, his expression as casual as if they’d been interrupted discussing desserts. “Hey, there.”

“Hey.” The teenager looked at them a moment longer. “Nice dress,” she told Nikki.

She managed a smile for Fern, using the moment to gather herself together. “Thanks, I’m wearing it to a restaurant opening.” A couple of kisses weren’t going to ruin what she had going here, she promised herself. All was not lost—at least not yet. “And we’d better leave or we’ll be late.”

Without looking at the man, she breezed past Jay. “Let’s go, Sonny.”

He followed, she knew, because his question came from a step behind her. “Sonny?”

She threw him a look over her bare shoulder. “That’s who you’re going as, right? I figured from the looks of you we’re both acting tonight. I’m playing straight, and you’re Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice.”

He did have a sort of Don-Johnson-in-the-eighties vibe, and she couldn’t tell from his expression whether the comparison amused or annoyed him.

She kept on talking. “So how’d I do with that, um, kiss? I tried to make it work by closing my eyes and thinking of a beautiful woman. Are we two partners going to make it through tonight’s undercover assignment with flying colors? Did I pass your test?”

She held her breath as he pulled the front door open for her. “You aced the thing,” he said, his voice dry. “Just don’t tell Tubbs I said so. That dude has a jealous streak wider than the wake of the cigar boat we used to ride around in.”

Jay blamed the damn dress. If Nikki’s body hadn’t been wrapped in an ocean-colored garment that was as tight to her skin as a mermaid’s scales, then he wouldn’t have to glue himself into a corner of the restaurant’s glassed-in, ocean-view deck in order to keep his hands to himself.

He’d decided to go to the damn party to satisfy his curiosity about her and now he was at the party and reluctant to get within ten feet of her. She was that bewitching.

How in hell had she gotten so far under his skin so fast? The kisses on the stairs had rattled him, and her bullshit response to it—I tried to make it work by closing my eyes and thinking of a beautiful woman—only pissed him off. Instead of being honest enough to acknowledge they rattled her, too, she’d tried instead to prick his ego.

Okay, she had pricked his ego. The mind-blowing little episode had left him edgy and angry while she appeared perfectly calm and self-contained as she inspected the food offerings set out on long banquet tables.

The air around him shifted, but he didn’t look away from Nikki.

“Hi, Jay. How are you?”

It was, perhaps, the only voice that could break his concentration. Cassandra’s voice. He turned toward her, narrowing his eyes. “You,” he said. “You should know that dress needs to come with a warning label.”

Cassandra had the innocent eyelash flutter down pat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He took her by the arm to face her in the right direction. “Just look what you’ve done to my chef.”

Across the deck, Nikki brushed her sun-streaked waves of hair over her sleek, bare shoulder. He’d had that smooth skin in his hands, cupped it in his palms, and Christ, he wanted that again. He wanted to caress her skin and suck on her nipples and bury his fingers palm-deep in the creamy center of her body.

“She looks like she should be lying on a treacherous rock somewhere singing siren songs to sailors,” he muttered.

Cassandra made an amused sound. “Well, if anyone can handle navigating such dangerous waters it would be you, Hef.”

“You’d think.” He had thought. He’d thought their gay charade would work to keep their mutual attraction under control. But he was tangled up with Nikki just the same. Then Cassandra’s last word sank in. Hef.

He turned to her again. “So it’s you who’s been telling her stories about me.”

“Sorry. At the time, I didn’t realize you two were dating.”

“She told you that?”

Cassandra gave a little smile. “Fairly emphatically, as a matter of fact.”

“No.”

“I thought I was being warned off,” she said, shrugging a little.

No. He swung back to watch Nikki, only to catch sight of a pair of men on the approach, their lustful intent obvious. “That damn dress,” he muttered, starting forward.

Cassandra slowed him by a touch to his forearm. “Look. She sees, she flees.”

Huh. Cassandra was right. Without betraying an outward sign of noticing the circling wolves, Nikki moved away, her gaze skipping past the Lotharios as if they were invisible.

Her patent disinterest stopped the guys in their tracks. They looked at each other and shook their heads, as if baffled by her cool.

The fact that he wasn’t the only man she could brush off didn’t make him feel the least bit better. But as long as she wasn’t being bothered, he could stay where he was, which would make him less bothered. Or so he hoped.

“Where’d you find her?” Cassandra asked.

His gaze followed Nikki as she sampled an appetizer. “Through my NYFM feature on private chefs. The woman who cooked for me went to culinary school with Nikki. I don’t think they were friends, exactly, but Sandy passed her name and number along to me.”

Cassandra took a sip from the glass of white wine in her hand. “So what’s her story? Nikki’s.”

“You found out as much as I know at the yarn shop this morning.”

“There’s nothing else you can add? Like was she close to her parents? Does she have a large circle of friends or an extended family that she depends upon?”

That goose along his spine was practically honking in his ear now. “She seems the type to keep to herself, I guess, and she hasn’t spoken of any friends or family besides her parents, who are gone.” He cocked an eyebrow in Cassandra’s direction. “Why the questions?”

One shoulder lifted, fell. “Just nosy, I suppose. And interested in other people’s origins.”

When he kept looking at her, she shrugged again and added more. “I was raised by a single mother. Product of Mom’s ménage between herself, a sperm bank, and something she said resembled a turkey baster.”

“Really?”

“Really. Mom thinks women don’t need a man to make a family. Problem is, a family of two can be a pretty lonely little group. I’ve always been envious of the kids with the squabbling cousins and gabby great-uncles who overcrowd their holiday tables.”

Jay’s life to a tee.

All at once, Cassandra’s wistful expression reminded him of Nikki. There’d been that same look on her face when she told him about the first meal she’d made. Pasta. For her mother. The goose started dancing and honking again.

“Cassandra…” He didn’t know what the damn bird was warning him about, but something odd was happening here. “Cassandra, what—”

“What will a man have to do to apologize?” A stone-faced Gabe Kincaid broke into their conversation.

Cassandra whirled to face her landlord. For the first time Jay noticed what she was wearing. Another one of her creations, he supposed. Sleeveless, scooped-neck, slinky, the dress was pale yellow with a tangerine color knitted around the neckline and then in tiered rows on the skirt.

Gabe was staring at the spectacular rack the dress did nothing to hide, as if he’d never seen breasts before.

“What are you looking at?” Cassandra demanded.

Poor Gabe. But then Jay’s sympathy evaporated as the other man’s unflinching gaze moved up to Cassandra’s annoyed face. He didn’t appear the least concerned that he’d been caught. “I’m looking at what you want me—and every other man—to look at, Cassandra. Otherwise you wouldn’t be wearing that scrap of provocation.”

Whoa. Jay didn’t know whether to applaud or take cover. Cassandra didn’t seem to know what to do either. She inhaled a breath so deep it further proved the elasticity of her designs.

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