Busted (Barnes Brothers #3) (15 page)

It was an easy quiet—he liked it. He could see the two of them sitting just like that. And his mind started to spin up scenarios of maybe her sitting in the living room with him, just like this . . .

“I’m going to have to head out soon.”

Ressa’s low voice cut into the hazy fantasy winding into
place in his head and he cleared his throat. He was messed up. He was here with a beautiful woman—one he’d already slept with, tasted, touched, a woman he wanted like mad—a woman who’d then brushed him off.

Complicated.

Yeah.

That pretty much summed it up.

Still, it would be worth it. Whatever her complications were, whatever hurdles they might have, he thought it would be worth it.

“I . . .”

“Look . . .”

They both spoke at once, and he grimaced, looked away.

“I want to see you again,” he said when she stayed silent. “Often. A lot. I’m going to be blunt and say it flat out—I want to see you in my bed. I want to take you out on a date, I want to press you up against the nearest hard surface and kiss you until we’re both senseless. I want to take you and Clay . . .” Then he paused, grinned. “Your cousin. Neeci? Her, too. We can go to the beach and they can run each other wild while we take it easy. I want all of that.”

She opened her mouth, her eyes going hazy.

Trey pressed his thumb to her mouth. “But I’ve already told you I wanted more with you. So . . . we’ve had coffee. Now you decide if we try for anything more or if you’d just rather everything stay in the past.” He paused and then added, “But if that’s what we’re doing, then you need to know . . . I’m not trying to be an ass, but I don’t want to pretend like we’re friends from here on out, either. I can’t be near you without wanting you and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”

She caught his wrist, tugged it down.

“And if those complications I told you about turn out to be more complicated than you thought?” she asked softly, nerves dancing across her face.

Something inside him unknotted. Relaxed. He felt like he could breathe deeper, see clearer. “Unless you’ve got the Russian mafia out after you, then I’ll deal.”

“No . . .” She leaned in and dropped her head against his shoulder. She smoothed a hand down the shoulder of his polo,
like there was some imaginary wrinkle. If there was, he was going to put in a dozen more to just have her touching him again. “No mob bosses running me down, Trey.”

“Then maybe you can go ahead and give me your phone number.” The way her mouth curved up ever so slightly was going to drive him nuts. “Maybe we can . . . I don’t know . . . grab coffee again. Or dinner.”

“I love both.”

*   *   *

“What’s up with you?” Farrah eyed her suspiciously as she came into the employee area.

“What? Nothing. Hey . . . why are you here?”

Immediately, she knew she’d been a little too jumpy with her answer, but she tried to skate by anyway, feigning a look of wide-eyed innocence, one that fooled nobody. Farrah made that clear by the way she crossed her arms over her chest and started to tap a tiny foot.

“Oh!” Ressa focused on the glittery, strappy silver sandal. “Where did you get those? They are so
cute
!”

“Zappos. Now let’s get back to the subject. You . . .” Farrah walked closer, circling around Ressa with narrowed eyes. Lips pursed, she raked a gaze over Ressa and then stopped in front of her, planting all five foot one inch of herself in the middle of Ressa’s path. “What is up with you?”

“Not a thing.” Ressa smoothed a hand back over her hair and then glanced down at her clothes. She’d spent the past thirty minutes or so wandering around, trying to clear her head because being with Trey muddled it. Muddled it enough that she’d lost track of time and had almost been late.

She’d ducked into the bathroom before she’d hurried in here, worried the wind or the heat or . . . something . . . would show on her face, but with a smile that seemed to be perpetually locked in place, she thought she looked fine.

Apparently she’d missed something. “I swung by the coffee shop and had a panini and iced coffee before I came in. I don’t have spinach between my teeth or anything, do I? What brings you out this way?”

It wasn’t
completely
a lie. She’d eaten the panini on her way
in, and now she was worried she
might
have something trapped between her teeth.

“No.” Farrah raked her with a rueful look. “You look gorgeous as always. You look like you’ve been . . . son of a bitch. Did you hook up with somebody last night?”

“What? No.” Ressa edged around Farrah and shoved her purse into the locker she’d been assigned. “You do remember that I have a five-year-old child living with me, right?”

“Okay. This morning. Did you hook up with some beautiful piece of man flesh this morning after you dropped her off? Oh! Hey, how was my baby’s first day?”

Beautiful piece of man flesh—
Ressa made the lightning adjustment as Farrah’s mind jumped from one track to the other. “I think she’ll do fine.”
That’s good. Focus on Neeci.
“The first day, she’s worried . . . wishes Kiara was here.”

Farrah rolled her eyes. “Sooner or later, she’ll realize how lucky she is that her mama
isn’t
here.” Then, with a lift of one slim brow and a sly grin, Farrah’s mind shifted track once more.

Back to the beautiful piece of man flesh, and yeah, that described Trey rather well, although he was so much more.

And they didn’t
hook up
. They’d done that already.

“No. I didn’t have a hook up this morning,” she said tartly, looking back at Farrah over her shoulder. “I dealt with Neeci, went and had coffee, some food. Came here. Fascinating morning.”

Farrah didn’t look like she entirely believed her. But she shrugged. “Okay, girl. If you say so. Anyway . . . I took half a day off. I have to go get fitted—”

“Shit!”
Ressa squeezed her eyes shut. “That’s today.”

“Yep.” For a moment, Farrah’s face all but glowed. “Just a few more of these things and then . . .”

Farrah sighed happily. Ressa would have rolled her eyes at the almost rapturous look of bliss on her friend’s face, but in truth, she was more than a little jealous. “I want pictures,” she said.

“I know, I know. I just wanted to remind you that
your
fitting is in tomorrow. And I’ve been told to tell you—
eat
.”

“Yes,
ma’am
.” Ressa didn’t need the pointed look to drive
the comment home again. She’d lost a few pounds between the original fitting and when she’d gotten to try the dress on again after the hem had been brought up.

The cause for the change in her weight? A total lack of appetite. Brought on by lack of sleep, a terminal case of lust, and loneliness, all of which started in New Jersey. And now she was worried it might start all over again.

“Don’t worry,” Ressa said with a game smile. “I’ll fit in the da—the dress.”

Farrah studied her, and it was too hard to hold her friend’s eyes so Ressa busied herself putting on the lanyard that held her ID card and checking her hair.

After a few more seconds, Farrah just sighed. “Okay, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow night, right?”

“You bet.” She listened to Farrah’s heels clicking on the floor. Farrah paused by the door.

“I’ll call tonight, okay? Send you pics and we can giggle over the dress,” Farrah said. The door squeaked as she went to open it.

Ressa squeezed her eyes shut. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Perfect . . . so . . . what’s his name?”

“Tr . . .” She clamped her mouth shut. Then, slowly closing the locker, she looked back at Farrah, standing with her back against the door. “You’re a sneaky bitch, you know that?”

The other woman looked unfazed. “A girl only gets
that
look in her eye when she’s met somebody. Now, let’s get to the good part. What’s his name?”

Swiping a hand down her skirt, Ressa nibbled her lower lip for a second. Then she just plunged ahead.

“Trey Barnes.”

For a second Farrah gaped at her.

Then she started to laugh. “Oh, okay. That’s funny. That’s . . .”

She stopped laughing when she caught sight of the look on Ressa’s face. “Wait a second . . . you’re
serious
?”

“Yeah.” Ressa braced herself.

“
The
Trey Barnes. As in the sexy motherfucker I’d die to get my hands on?”

“You’re getting married,” Ressa pointed out, trying to ignore the curl of possessiveness that tugged at her.

“I mean if I
wasn’t
.” Farrah waved a hand through the air like that was just a given. She glanced around the lounge and then moved closer, eyes narrowed by retro-chic glasses. “I thought you had trouble getting him to talk to you.”

“Ah . . . it wasn’t that. Exactly.” Ressa blew out a breath. “I need to get out there. The manager here isn’t quite as laid back as my old boss.” She used the most charming smile she had in her arsenal.

And it didn’t do jackshit.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Farrah said, catching Ressa by the elbow. It would have been funny—Farrah barely topped five feet and soaking wet, she might weigh one hundred pounds. Ressa, on the other hand, was five eight and although she wasn’t constantly on the diet binge, she hadn’t been below one seventy since high school and she generally had to fight to keep it at one eighty.

While Ressa might outweigh and outreach her, there was nobody who could out stubborn the other woman.

“What?” Exasperated, Ressa tugged her arm free and propped her hands on her hips. “What more do you want to know? Look, I told him you’d like to get him in here, although I don’t know if it will happen. He’s not big on doing anything where he lives. That’s a huge part of it. He’s pretty private. I wouldn’t call him shy, but . . .”

“I don’t care about that!” Farrah’s eyes rounded and she advanced on Ressa, poking a finger at her. “You’re
seeing
him and you didn’t tell me.”

“I’m not . . .” She stopped, blew out a breath. “We’re not. Not exactly.”

“What’s
that
mean?” Farrah gaped. “Son of a
bitch
—are you
sleeping
with him? Please, please, please tell me you did—tell me you fucked him and that he can fuck a woman the way I think he can.”

“Would you drag your mind out of the gutter?” Huffing out a breath, she turned away so Farrah wouldn’t see the answer in the rush of color in her cheeks. “It means we’re not seeing each other
yet
.”

It wasn’t a lie. And she hadn’t answered Farrah’s other question, either.

It worked. She hoped. Moving over to the watercooler, she
got herself a cup of water she really didn’t need and took a sip before looking back at her best friend. “We . . . well, we talked a lot in New Jersey.” It wasn’t a lie. Not really. They’d just talked a lot in between bouts of amazing sex. “But I . . . I didn’t want to try to pursue it. He . . . did you know he was married?”

Farrah’s eyes softened. “Honey, his wife
died
. A while ago. Didn’t you know that?”

“It’s not like I’m one of the Trey stalkers on that Pinterest page. I don’t follow his every move the way you do.” Although she had to admit she had a certain interest in some of his moves now. Very specific moves. Mouth suddenly dry, Ressa took another sip, focused on the wall in front of her. “And yes, I know that.
Now
. He was still wearing his wedding ring.”

“Oh.” Farrah glanced toward the door as voices drew near. “Oh, sweetie.”

“Look, it’s not . . . I don’t think he’s still hung up on her. It was rough when she died. She was pregnant—he almost lost his boy, too.” Then she shook her head. “This isn’t a good time to be talking.”

“No, it’s not. Look, I know it was bad. You were . . . well, that was back when things got bad with Kiara—you had your hands more than full. It was a big splash in the news around here for a while. Anyway. So, forget me calling. I’m coming by after my fitting. We’ll talk.” Farrah nodded. “I’ll grab Chinese. You grab a bottle of wine.”

Ressa winced. “I don’t know . . .”

“Are you going out with him tonight?” Farrah cocked a brow.

“No, but . . .”

“Then I’m coming over. Because we are not
done
.”

*   *   *

Trey had made the shift from being a night owl to learning how to focus in the morning once it was clear that afternoons were a bust, because that was when Clayton
really
seemed to want to make the most chaos and noise imaginable. His son might have started school, but he suspected nights and afternoon were going to be just as manic as before.

Half lost in a world that involves silken skin and soft sheets
and shaky sighs—a book, not a dream about Ressa—he didn’t hear the first time the doorbell rang, or the second.

But by the third, when he was trying to convince the hero and the heroine they couldn’t have sex . . .
yet
 . . . the jangling noise managed to cut through his concentration.

Scowling, he eyed the clock, looked back at the open project on his computer.

His hands were numb at this point.

He’d managed to get a couple thousand words written on the next Forrester book. But he didn’t want to go answer the damn door.

The bell rang again.

With a sigh, he shoved back, a little off-kilter as he realized how late it was. He’d set the alarm on his phone—not that he expected he’d ever lose track of time that much, but he wanted to make sure he was on the road well before school let out.

It was after one. He had to leave in another fifty minutes.

That much time had passed. The silence in his house was almost eerie.

He wasn’t used to that much quiet in the middle of the day. By now, there should have been at least a hundred demands to go swimming, to go to the beach, to go to the Nauticus—or even just riding his bike—something.

But all day long, it had been quiet.

Muscles in Trey’s neck were stiff, letting him know how much time it had been since he’d moved, and he rolled his head from one side, to the other.

The doorbell had fallen silent and he breathed out a sigh of relief. Nadine. Had to be. The only other people who’d hang that long were his brothers and they’d call. Besides most of them had keys. Except Seb, and he’d had one; it had just gotten lost.