Page 33 of Take Me Tender

“Liar.” He crowded closer, his gaze dropping from her mouth to her throat. “I can see your pulse racing, cookie.”

She could feel her pulse racing, driving the urge for another round of sex through every cell of her body. Last night she’d insisted on doing it because she couldn’t bear him viewing her as a victim. Never let them think you’re weak. But this desire presented different dangers.

“Hef, honey—”

“Stop that.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t make it like that.”

“Like what?” She was desperate here, desperate to remember that last night’s intimacy didn’t connect them in any way that she couldn’t easily break. “Like what was it to you?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Took a breath, then backed away. “Damn it,” he muttered.

A chill rushed across her skin at the loss of his heat. She turned to open the refrigerator and then stared at the shelves, trying to remember what she was after.

Peace. That’s what she wanted. A little peace and space to absorb the fact that she wasn’t necessarily a frigid freak, doomed to fake orgasms for the rest of her sorry life. The truth was, she wanted to fling herself into Jay’s arms and kiss his face a thousand times for giving her something no other man had…and that she’d never been able to give herself.

It didn’t take a genius to determine why sex had been a struggle in the past…but knowing the source of her hang-ups and overcoming them were two separate things. However, she couldn’t let gratitude fool her into imagining a bond neither of them wanted.

So just to be on the safe side, she planned on never touching him again.

“Nikki—”

“Go away, Jay.” There was little fight left in her right now.

From behind her, she felt the air move and then he was playing with her hair. Goose bumps rolled down her neck as he twisted a piece around his finger—ominous image, that. Nikki pressed a forearm over her tightening nipples, desperate for him not to see how sexually defenseless she was to him.

“Nikki…”

Weak Nikki. Weak Nikki who turned into his body and lifted her face. It was an invitation to a kiss, she knew that, he knew that. His hand slid to the small of her back and pulled her closer as his mouth came down—

—and the telephone sitting on the nearby countertop rang.

The brash sound brought common sense crashing back. Nikki made to move from his hold, but his hand tightened on her even as the other reached for the receiver. “We’re not through,” he said.

But they were! They were!

He held the phone to his ear. “Hello?” As he listened, his hand slipped off her back.

Relieved of his touch, Nikki quickly stepped away.

“She’s not? You’re sure? When?”

At the sharp note in Jay’s voice, Nikki stepped back to him, reaching out to grasp his forearm. “What? Who?”

He was off the phone after two more terse sentences. “Damn it,” he said. “That was Marie’s mom. Fern isn’t there. According to Marie, she left last night and didn’t return.”

Nikki’s stomach twisted, images of the beach party un-spooling in her mind. “Do you think she went back to Zuma?”

“Doubt it. I guarantee the cops were on their way to breaking that up.”

“Oh, God. Jay. What could have happened? Where could she be?”

“You’re white as a ghost.” He pulled her into his arms and she rested her cheek against the steady thump of his heart. “Don’t think the worst.”

“There was booze at that party. She could have been drinking.”

His arms tightened on her. “Fern wouldn’t do that.”

“What if Jenner wanted her to?” Nikki knew her voice was rising, but she couldn’t seem to calm herself. “What if he handed her the drinks in order to loosen her up? Some of that stuff, you have to know, Jay, some of that stuff is tasteless. They mix it with Gatorade or fruit juice and then…”

“Fuck.” Jay pushed her away and looked down into her face.

Nikki could see he didn’t want to believe her. “I know what it’s like. I know how a girl can get caught up trying to please the boy who makes her feel like someone special.”

“Fuck.” His fingers tightened on her upper arms, stopping just short of pain as his voice rose. “Damn it, Nikki, is that how it started? Is that what happened to…to your ‘friend’? Her Romeo got her drunk as his idea of foreplay?”

“It doesn’t matter what happened then. Fern matters now.”

“Both of you matter. Then. Now.” He spun away from her and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what ‘this’ is.”

Nikki ran a soothing hand down his back and tried calming her own concern. “It’s worry over Fern. Let’s think—”

“Worry over me, why?” Fern’s voice.

“Fern.” Both Nikki and Jay whipped around to face the teenager. Wearing a pair of baggy pajama bottoms printed with smiling seashells and a matching short-sleeved tee, she was staring at them, her hair pillow-tousled.

She blinked, then headed for the counter where she nabbed a piece of mango to pop into her mouth. “What’s the matter with you guys?”

“You were supposed to spend the night at Marie’s,” Jay ground out, the muscles beneath Nikki’s hand tight.

“I came back.”

“Without telling Marie or her mom.”

Fern shrugged. “Whoops.”

Jay’s spine snapped straighter. “‘Whoops?’ That’s all you have to say? And how’d you get here in the middle of the night anyway?”

“You’re not my father.” The teenager focused on the cutting board and scooped up another piece of fruit.

Her cousin’s voice lowered and lost any semblance of its usual laid-back style. “But I’m in charge of you and I won’t hesitate to call Uncle George if necessary. I don’t care that your parents are on their anniversary cruise with mine. Got that? You answer my questions or I will call your father.”

Fern’s gaze jumped to Jay’s. “You wouldn’t—”

“I will.” His face was grim. “How’d you get here?”

After a tense moment, her eyes dropped and her shoulders slumped. “Jenner, okay? He picked me up at Marie’s and then brought me here.”

“I’m going to talk to that kid—”

“Don’t.” Fern looked more desperate than defiant now. “Please. I’m not seeing him anymore. We broke up last night.”

“Oh, Fern.” Nikki’s hand slid away from Jay as she took a step toward the teen. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She turned to open a cabinet and pull out a mug. “Even better if you’ll show me how to make one of your famous mochas.”

Nikki stared at the bruise just peeking from beneath the sleeve of the girl’s shirt, her stomach clenching. But Jenner was out of Fern’s life now, she told herself, so she swallowed her concern and moved to start the drink.

Scowling, Jay stayed planted in the middle of the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest, necessitating that the two of them walk around him. Finally, Fern slanted him a glance. “Get out of the way, Jay. And what’s with all the third degree, anyhow?”

“Somebody’s got to be the adult.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be you,” Fern scoffed.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Admit it,” the girl continued. “You’re the family’s Peter Pan.”

He jerked back. “What?”

Fern spooned whipped cream on top of her mocha. “You heard me. The boy who never grew up.”

Nikki busied herself with the rinds of fruit, though she couldn’t miss the curse he muttered under his breath as he strode for the back door. The slider slammed behind him.

Four seconds later he was back, his feet shoved in a pair of ratty deck shoes that usually spent their day on the back porch. “I’m outta here.” He grabbed his car keys from the abalone shell on the counter.

“But breakfast—”

“Don’t worry about it. This morning I’ll be getting mine in Neverland.”

Then he was gone again. Fern wandered away shortly after that. Nikki stood alone in the kitchen, breathing in the quiet.

She was supposed to be glad, she thought. She’d wanted to be alone this morning. Except the two cousins had left her with a half-prepared breakfast and enough emotional leftovers that guaranteed her anything but peace.

Jay realized speeding off in a huff didn’t make him appear any more adult, but for God’s sake, the women in his house were making him nuts. They’d turned his comfortable bachelor pad on Billionaire’s Beach into an active minefield of indecipherable reactions and insulting accusations.

Peter Fucking Pan.

He noticed that Nikki hadn’t leaped to his defense. No, sir. She’d just stood there, her crazy-making eyes glued to the countertop while his cousin—his teenaged cousin—stripped the skin off his bones.

No wonder he’d made his escape to Neverland…uh, farther north in Malibu. But hell, it wasn’t so much different from that imaginary world, when he thought about it. The near-fantasy natural surroundings, the surfers who were obvious stand-ins for both the Pirates and the Lost Boys, the dozens of Mermaids wandering the beaches in their bikinis and flip-flops.

---