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The decadent weight she’d been basking under eased as he shifted to his elbows and peered down into her eyes. Familiar eyes.
Oh, God.
“It’s fun to play and all, but I didn’t want you to wonder or worry about who you were with. My name’s Garrett.”
“Garrett … Carter?” Her throat closed over the name, fighting what she knew deep in the pit of her stomach to be true.
His muscles tensed. “You know me?”
Oh, yeah. She knew him. And her face must have said as much because Garrett flinched, looking pained and then … resigned. Moving to a chair in the corner, he grabbed the light quilt from the back and tossed it to her.
Shoving one leg into his jeans, and then the other, he pulled them over his hips before he turned back. “I don’t know what you heard, but this—tonight, Nichole—it’s not—”
He stood immobile, his gaze searing over her skin, her hair—sweeping across her bedroom until it settled at the ladder-style bookshelf at the opposite side of the room. His body seemed to lock tight. She knew what he’d see there. The photo Maeve had given her for Christmas last year. The one where their grinning faces filled the frame.
He took a halting step forward, his features hardening.
His eyes slammed shut. “Nichole?”
Pulling the quilt around her breasts, she tried to ignore the sensitivity of her nipples and the knowledge Garrett had made them that way. With his mouth. His teeth. Tongue—
“Nikki Daniels?”
Garrett Carter. Maeve’s brother. The Panty Whisperer.
Yeah, she couldn’t quite believe it either.
Stalking across the room as he raked his fingers through his hair, Garrett—because, as clumsy as it felt tumbling around her thoughts, that’s what his name was—looked as dismayed as she felt. One thing was certain. She didn’t have to worry about the night turning into anything more complicated than—well, this.
Granted, this was messy. But the makings of some emotional train wreck it wasn’t.
Maeve would laugh about this. Nichole knew she would. She had to.
There wasn’t any risk to their relationship—not over one innocuous little slip she hadn’t seen coming.
“What is that?” demanded the voice that had been growling her name in her ear mere minutes before.
Her head snapped up and then followed Garrett’s pointed gaze back to her hand and the slim rectangle of technology she’d unconsciously reached for. “My phone.”
Her lifeline to sorting out the mess in her head. To Maeve reassuring her their friendship was as strong as ever. There wouldn’t be any awkwardness. Not this time. Not like with—
“No kidding. A phone, Nikki?”
Jerked back from the brink of one of the worst memories of her life, Nichole refocused on the man glowering down at her.
Her brow pushed up a degree. So now she was Nikki? Like Garrett thought he knew her or something? But before she could call him on his presumption he was back at her.
“What are you doing with it?”
Nothing yet. But the intent was obvious. Even if it had taken a moment for her head to catch up to her thumbs. “Texting Maeve.”
He’d crossed to the bed in two strides.
“Like hell you are.” Paling, he grabbed her hand and turned it over in his. “If you snapped a picture of me on this thing, so help me—”
“What? Are you insane? You think I took photos of you when you were … were … doing that?”
Arms folded over his chest, Garrett pulled back. “No. I hadn’t actually thought—” Another, deeper growl. “But you tried to take a picture of me at the party.”
“And you said no, so I didn’t. Though in retrospect I’m fairly certain both of us would have preferred I had.”
What Garrett had given her was beyond anything she could have imagined. But regardless of how good it had felt—how much she might have needed it—nothing was worth risking her relationship with Maeve.
Brows drawn, he asked, “You think Maeve would have warned you off me?”
Seriously? “Don’t you?”
Granted it would have been for reasons different than Nichole’s, but, yes, she was fairly certain Maeve would have wanted her to know who she was about to take a dip with.
One dark brow cocked in amusement. “I think she’d have been laughing too hard to hit ‘send.’ But for you, she’d have tried.”
Nichole felt her lips twitching at the thought, along with relief flooding through her at hearing Garrett too believed Maeve would have a good sense of humor about this. “You could be right.”
Garrett sat at the foot of the bed—not close enough to touch, but not a total snub either. Just maintaining the distance between them.
Snaking a leg out from beneath the blanket’s overlap, she stretched, trying to reach the panties lying three feet from the bed without actually leaving it.
There was something significantly different about being naked in front of Garrett now that she knew who he was. What he was.
At risk of severe cramp, she strained further, extending her leg until finally she was able to snare the little heap of lace-edged cotton with her toes. Only just as she had them Garrett turned, one arm braced on the bed, muscles bunched thick from the weight of his torso, and cocked a curious brow at her. “What are you doing?”
“Panties.”
His brow drew down as his gaze flickered over the length of her barely concealed form, making her pull and pluck at the corners of the blanket to try and hide further beneath it.
“You really didn’t know who I was?” he asked, pushing to his feet.
“I would have run the other way. No offense,” she offered belatedly, wondering whether it was possible not to take offense.
But apparently he hadn’t. “No, that’s good.”
“Why?”
“I just didn’t like the idea of what happened tonight being some kind of conquest thing.”
She sat up straighter. “This from The Panty Whisperer?”
Garrett froze where he was, jeans pulled over his hips but the fly left open. Bare feet, bare chest, the short dark waves of his hair a tousled mess … It would have been a calendar-hot snapshot in time if not for the hard set of his jaw and narrowed eyes. “You did not just call me that.”
“Well, I mean …”
He paced the room and back. Coming to stop in front of her.
“What?” he demanded, thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans—a position that pushed them down just that extra inch in front, showing off a nearly scandalous stretch of skin. “You’re not suggesting I ‘whispered’ you out of anything?”
With a noncommittal wave she tried to bat away the question. In three years she hadn’t even been tempted by another man. And in less than one night she’d fallen flat on her back and practically begged him to follow her down. If that wasn’t some kind of freakish sexual panty magic she didn’t know what was.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_35088dbb-1734-595c-8166-8aee8d286c3f)
FIGHTING THE STRING of obscenities rioting on the tip of his tongue, Garrett ground his molars together and pinched the bridge of his nose.
It didn’t get worse than this.
Well, that wasn’t true. It did get worse. It had been worse. Back when he’d been eighteen and his older sister’s friends had been trying to hook up with him intentionally. That had been way worse.
This, at least, was an accident.
Nikki. Hell, no wonder he’d had that bizarre sense of connection. He’d been listening to Maeve talk about her for years. He knew she’d grown up in Milwaukee, worked insane hours as an accountant at some big downtown firm, liked action movies over chick-flicks, read everything from sci-fi to biographies and that her favorite snack was peanut butter cups and corn chips. She sang along to the radio, badly, when she thought no one was listening and she didn’t date—ever.
So what the hell was she doing tumbling into bed with him? Bringing some stranger into her home?
Garrett’s stomach dropped as his feet stilled on the carpet.
It was all that talk about appreciating the simple stuff. Aw, hell. Maybe he had “whispered” her.
“Um … Garrett?”
The muscles along his spine tightened as he turned to look back and found her clutching that damn phone to her chest like some kind of security blanket.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to lie to Maeve about this.”
She thought he was worried about Maeve finding out? Not even close.
“If she teases you, you’ll just have to man up and take it.”
Man up? He laughed out loud. Nikki was definitely one of his sister’s friends, because no one else on the planet would have the gall to talk to him like that.
“I’m not worried about a little teasing.” Though he knew full well there wouldn’t be anything little about it. The teasing would be merciless, carried out by a seasoned professional he’d trained himself. But teasing he could take. It was part of the deal. You dish it, you better be able to take it.
“So what’s the problem, then?” she asked, working the thin cover until it was wrapped around her, pulled up tight to her neck.
And that was the first thing. The sight of a woman who had been so completely open to him not twenty minutes ago—bare and beautiful and unselfconscious as she panted for more, urged him on with the dig of her heels at his back and begged him not to stop. That woman—his little sister’s best friend—who hadn’t had sex in three years and for some insane reason had brought him back to her bed—was hiding awkwardly behind a blanket. That was the problem. He hated it.
Clearing his throat, he answered, “You deserve better.”
The second thing. Maybe a part of him was disappointed. Felt short-changed.
He’d thought for a moment they could have something. Obviously he wasn’t after a deep commitment or extended obligation. He needed another responsibility like he needed a hole in his head. But something light. Fun.
She’d seemed really fun. And intelligent. And just … easy in a way that had nothing to do with the kind of women he’d been scratching his itch with the past fifteen years. The kind who knew the score and weren’t after anything more than he was. A few hours. Once in a while.
Nichole had made him think about things like movies and conversation and walks and all the stuff an average joe had tried on for size back in high school or college. Not that he’d tell her all that. She didn’t need to know. Probably wouldn’t believe him anyway, considering how easily that Panty Whisperer business had rolled off her tongue.
Damn, he could only imagine all the preconceived notions she must have about him. And the truth of it was, letting her hold on to them would serve his purpose better than any of the clarifications he could make. Because she was Maeve’s best friend. Which meant all the concerns he’d never had with other women were suddenly there, front and center.
He couldn’t attempt something casual with her because he’d worry about the implications his relationship with her would have on the one she had with Maeve. On his relationship with Maeve. And even though he was looking for more than some single night score, the relationship he was ready for was about taking in the occasional sunset … not riding off into one. It was about enjoying some pleasurable company for a while … not forever.
It was about dating. Casually—his eyes cut back to Nichole—but exclusively.
“Look, Nikki, you’re an amazing girl, but I don’t date my sisters’ friends. It’s a rule I’ve got.”
Her expression cleared and she was leaning toward him then, the blanket draping more provocatively than she could have realized, based on the shy way she’d been covering up just moments before. He tried not to let his eye linger on the seductive gaps and tantalizing glimpses of the flesh he’d had full access to and could still feel beneath his fingers and lips, but were now completely off-limits. Round. Soft. Succulent. The kind of tempting swells that begged to be nipped and nibbled. Licked and suckled.
The sound of a throat clearing in a pointed, eyes-up-here-mister kind of way had Garrett yanked out of that land of forbidden territory and rubbing a hand along the tightening muscles of his neck.
“Okay, I know you’re freaking out a little right now.”
The hand stilled as he arched a brow at the woman who’d just uttered the impossible. “Excuse me?”
Those bare shoulders were pulled up into a delicate shrug as she waved a hand around in his direction. “But you honestly don’t need to be. I didn’t have any misconceptions about what was happening tonight. Where it could go or what it could mean. Really.”
Uh-huh. “You don’t need to pretend with me, Nikki. I think we both know—”
“No, Garrett. I don’t know what you think you know about me. But—”
“I know it’s been three years. And before that dry spell you’d gone out with precisely two guys. Both of whom you ended up engaged to. So I’d say, yeah, you probably were serious.” Too serious for a guy like him.
“So, I’m going to pretend it doesn’t creep me out that you know that. And I’ll wait until you leave to have my discussion with your sister about privacy, trust and boundaries—”
Oh, man. This was going downhill fast. Holding out a staying hand, he tried not to get caught up in all the ways the bit of red rushing to the skin at Nichole’s neck and shoulders was different than what he’d sampled earlier.
“What?” she snapped.
“Don’t get pissed at Maeve about this.” And already with the complications a simple exchange of names might have avoided. “Please. She was just giving me some reassurance about the crowd she hung around with. Making sure I knew you weren’t trouble. That you were … you know … into commitment … a ‘nice girl.’“ There was something about the slow upward push of her brows that warned of danger, had him backtracking as he tried another tack. “Not that I don’t think you’re nice now.”
“You should probably just stop, Garrett.”
Yeah, he probably should. Get out of there and get started on figuring out what it was going to take to appease his little sister when she found out he’d gotten her into hot water with her closest girlfriend. Only the way things were right now—hell, less than a single night and already he felt the press of new responsibility settling on his shoulders—he needed to know she was okay.
She’d trusted him. Let him into her bed. “Nikki—”
“Here’s the thing.” Shaking her head, Nichole tucked a wild curl neatly behind her ear. “Tonight was an accident. An error in judgment on both our parts. So why don’t we both agree to put it behind us? I mean, it’s not like we’ve been tripping over each other these last few years. I’m guessing it’s a pretty safe bet our paths won’t cross again anytime soon. And, believe me, I’m okay with that. This wasn’t supposed to be more than a single night anyway.”
He blinked. No way. She was just being tough to protect her pride.
Except those almond eyes were steady, clear as they held his. And wasn’t that an ironic twist? The first woman he’d pursued with the intent of having something “more” didn’t see him as anything more than the kind of one-night stand he’d been ready to leave behind.
It shouldn’t have rubbed—but, man.
