Inseparable (7 page)

“Okay, what was that about?” Kenna asked him, following his gaze.

He chuckled as he tightened her hand in his. “Mama Laverne warned me that with Blade out of the picture, chances are single
women would turn their sights on me. I thought she was joking, but apparently I was wrong.”

“Wow, you’re in demand, huh?” she asked, grinning as he led her out of the building.

“I don’t see anything funny about it. In fact, on our way to dinner I need you to give me some dating advice.”

She lifted a brow. “Dating advice about what?”

“How to handle unwanted advances…”

Chapter 6

K
enna shifted in her car seat as she thought about Reese’s request for dating advice. She couldn’t help smiling.
Poor baby.

“I hope you’re hungry, because I am.”

She glanced over at him and snickered. “I guess a man can work up an appetite eluding women on the prowl.”

“Hey, watch it. You know how I am about stuff like that.”

Yes, she did know. Reese wasn’t like most men who were as gorgeous as he was. He didn’t have a conceited bone in his body. He probably thought he was just a regular-looking guy, even though his looks alone could make a woman’s panties wet.

She remembered just what she’d thought the first time she met him at his dorm room to go over his physics studies. She had taken one look at him and for a moment all thoughts of Terrence had been erased.

The first thing she’d noticed about him, besides the beautiful color of his skin, the darkness of his eyes, his chiseled jawline
and kissable mouth, was that he had the manners of a Southern gentleman—one who knew how to treat a woman like a lady.

It didn’t take long to discover that he was a loner. Although he had plenty of friends on campus, he pretty much stayed to himself most of the time, rarely allowing others into his circle. He was not a party animal. In fact, the more time they spent together studying, the more she got to know the real Reese Madaris, the one few understood or ever got close to.

“You never did answer my question,” he said, glancing over at her when the SUV came to a stop at a traffic light.

“Your dating question?”

He shrugged. “If you want to call it that. I’m not interested in any of those women. Most of them were probably involved with Blade. Do they honestly think they can just move from one Madaris to the next?”

Kenna couldn’t help but laugh. “Seriously, Reese, a woman hard up for a man will move from one
brother
to the next. They don’t care. Like your great-grandmother said, with your cousin Blade out of circulation, that means you’re next.”

“Then I guess that means you and I need to keep on pretending.”

She rolled her eyes. “Or you and Alyson need to hook up again.”

He shook his head. “I doubt that will happen.”

She wondered why he felt that way, but decided not to ask. She figured the only way to get rid of her attraction to him was to make sure he was seeing someone and she was seeing someone, too. “We’ll see.”

When he didn’t respond she decided to flip through the pages of a magazine she’d found in his SUV—a tractor magazine. “You’re buying another one of these?”

He glanced over at her. “I’m thinking about it. And you never answered my question.”

She hadn’t answered it because she didn’t want to think about
how it would feel being rejected by a man like Reese. “My advice to you would be to let them know you’re not interested up front. The worse thing a man can do is to lead a woman on.”

He nodded. “That sounds fair. But what if they don’t get the hint?”

She glanced up, met his gaze and grinned. “Trust me. You have a look that lets a woman know when you don’t have the time or the inclination. A woman would be crazy to try and take you on. But then…there are a lot of bold, brazen women out there, so beware.”

“But if push comes to shove, you’ll be my backup plan right?”

She didn’t want to think what being his backup plan might entail. Inside the Madaris Building when he had leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, it had taken everything she could muster not to get weak in the knees. She could see women—plenty of them—coming on to him. Yet he hadn’t been interested.

“You haven’t answered me yet.”

She glanced over at him and gave him a rueful smile. He was asking a lot of questions and it seemed she was evading a lot of answers. “Okay, if I must, then yes. I’ll be your backup plan. I guess that’s the price of being your best friend, right?”

He chuckled. “Right.”

After midnight they returned to his house. Reese couldn’t remember when he had enjoyed an evening more. They had eaten at Sisters, a restaurant owned by Netherlander Sinclair, a family friend.

The food had been delicious, the entertainment enjoyable. The only drawback was when he had excused himself to go to the men’s room. He was approached by two women who tried coming on to him. He was sure they had seen him sharing a table with Kenna but still were bold enough, thoughtless enough and disrespectful enough to approach him anyway. Taking Kenna’s
advice, he thanked them but told them he wasn’t interested. His bluntness didn’t seem to dissuade them. He couldn’t understand how Blade had dealt with that kind of aggressiveness. But for Blade it wasn’t a big deal. His cousin had enjoyed being Houston’s most sought-after bachelor.

After dinner, Reese and Kenna took in a movie. It was Denzel’s latest and was directed by former actor Sterling Maxwell, a family friend who made a cameo appearance in the movie. By the time the movie ended, it was still relatively early, so they figured they might as well see another movie. Since Kenna hadn’t complained about watching his guy flick, Reese agreed to see a romantic comedy with her. He hated to admit it, but he actually enjoyed it.

“I guess I’ll spend tomorrow unpacking,” Kenna said once they returned to Reese’s place.

He glanced over at her. “You can sleep late if you want to. Do whatever you want at your leisure. In two weeks you’ll be working again.”

He followed her to the kitchen and sat down at the table. She started brewing a pot of coffee and then went to the cookie jar. She was comfortable in his home, just as he was in hers whenever he’d visited her in Austin. Just as he would be once she moved into her place in Houston after it was completed.

For a brief moment he sat watching her. He couldn’t help but wonder how things would be if they were both married to someone else. More than once someone in his family had taken him aside and told him that it was unrealistic for him to assume any woman would understand and accept the relationship he shared with Kenna. He had been quick to tell them he disagreed. Any woman he married would have to accept Kenna as his best friend. He knew Kenna had the same expectation of the men she dated, so he didn’t see a problem.

Alyson had been fine with his friendship with Kenna after
he’d explained how things were. At least he thought she had been fine with it. But after eight months, she began questioning why Kenna had a standing invitation to spend the night at his place when she didn’t. Why couldn’t Kenna just get a hotel whenever she came to town? At first he’d ignored her, and thought sooner or later she would wise up and stop asking questions. But she hadn’t, and the more she whined about his relationship with Kenna, the more he began putting distance between them. Finally, he’d gotten fed up and ended things with Alyson.

Reese didn’t know what Alyson had planned for the weekend, but he figured she thought it would be a way to make up for all the mean and hateful things she’d said about Kenna. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

“How many cookies? One or two?”

He grinned. “Why do you bother asking? You know I can’t eat just one.”

She put two cookies on a plate and placed a freshly brewed cup of coffee on the table in front of him. “It’s late.”

His eyes connected with hers. “Am I supposed to have nightmares or something if I eat a chocolate chip cookie past midnight?”

“Maybe,” she said, taking the chair across from him. “You never know.” She took a sip of her coffee and then asked, “What time do you plan on getting up in the morning?”

He shrugged. “I have a meeting at a job site at nine, so I’ll probably leave here around eight to get there. Why?”

“I need to return the moving van and pick up a rental car.”

“It’s already been taken care of.”

“What do you mean it’s been taken care of?”

“While we were in town, Joe took the truck to the rental agency and picked up a car for you. You didn’t see the moving van when we pulled up, did you?”

“No, I just assumed it was parked in the back or something.”

“No, your rental car is parked out back.”

“Thanks. That saves me a lot of time tomorrow.”

He looked over at her. “You don’t have to thank me. You should know by now I got your back.”

She smiled and picked up a cookie. “Yes, I know.”

That was another thing that he appreciated about his friendship with Kenna. She wasn’t hard to please, and over the years she had been nothing but supportive. After he graduated from college, she had supported his decision to go work for Remington Oil for a few years instead of working for Dex right out of college. She’d agreed with his reasoning that since Remington Oil was a bigger company, he could acquire a lot of skill and knowledge that would be valuable when he did make the move to Madaris Explorations. While working at Remington, he’d gotten the chance to travel to a lot of exotic places and meet a lot of interesting people. When he finally did decide to work with Dex’s outfit, his résumé had been impressive and he had a lot more to offer.

He and Kenna sat at his kitchen table talking while they drank coffee and ate cookies. When he finally looked over at the clock, it was almost two in the morning.

“It’s late. You need to go on to bed, Reese. You have to get up early in the morning. Thanks to you, I don’t,” she said.

She was right. Even though he usually didn’t leave the ranch until eight, he made it a point to meet with Joe every morning around six. He would usually be in bed by now but hadn’t been aware of the time, since he had enjoyed sitting and talking to her.

“You’re right. I need to get to bed. You know your way around this place, and if there’s anything you need, just ask Joe.”

“I will.”

With great effort he stood up from his chair. He wasn’t ready to end their conversation. “You’re going to stay up a while longer?”

“Um, not too much longer. I’m not that sleepy, since I took a long nap earlier. I might check out a movie downstairs.”

Like her, he enjoyed movies. When he had the house built, Kenna had convinced him to include a home theater in the basement. The room had been built to her specifications and was perfect for movie and sports enthusiasts. Whenever she would come for the weekend, Kenna ended up spending more time there than any other room in the house.

“Okay. Then I’ll see you when I get home tomorrow.”

“All right. Don’t work too hard.”

He chuckled as he turned to leave the kitchen. “I won’t.”

Suddenly it hit him as he walked toward the stairway. He was feeling something he couldn’t explain, some emotion he was trying hard to make sense of. What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he feel the need to give her a kiss good night? They hugged all the time. Once in a while, he would greet her with a peck on the cheek or the forehead when they hadn’t seen each other for a long while. But usually he wouldn’t just kiss her for no reason.

The only reason he’d kissed her earlier that day was to give his stalker the impression that he was already taken. But for some reason he couldn’t explain, he felt his night wouldn’t be complete unless he tasted the softness of her skin on his lips, pulled her into his arms and held her tight, and smelled her tantalizing fragrance in his nostrils.

A hard knot suddenly settled in his throat.
Crap!
What on earth could he be thinking? Kenna was his best friend, for crying out loud. His protective side, the one that usually emerged where she was concerned, was somewhere hiding right now. Shaking his head, he quickly walked up the stairs, thinking that once he got to his room he needed to smack his head against the wall a few times.

There had to be a reason his brain was malfunctioning, like it had short-circuited somewhere along the way. Why on earth
would he see Kenna through the eyes of a man filled with lust? Granted, it wasn’t the first time he had thought about it. Like last month at Blade’s wedding reception, when he’d been looking at her, listening to his great-grandmother’s comments.

He would get a good night’s sleep and wake up in the morning thinking like the Reese Madaris he knew—the one who would not, under any circumstances, get hot and bothered about his best friend.

He walked into his bedroom and closed the door behind him. He would get a good night’s sleep, and he was convinced come morning he would be thinking straight once again.

Kenna inhaled a slow, deep breath as she watched the couple on the wall-to-wall movie screen and wondered why no man had ever kissed her like that—warm and sloppy wet. Tongues do more than just mingle. They stake claims over and over again in a passionate way. It was the kind of kiss that could steal the breath right out of your lungs, make your head spin a thousand times and make your heart pound hard in your chest. She shook her head and thought it could only happen that way in the movies.

She glanced around the huge, dark room at three in the morning and realized this was just the place she needed to be. She had showered, slipped into an oversize T-shirt and leaned back in one of several comfortable, soft-leather recliners in Reese’s home theater that cushioned your backside like nobody’s business. The huge movie posters on the wall, the popcorn-making machine and the recessed lighting helped create an authentic movie-theater atmosphere.

Kenna found the perfect movie to watch, a romantic thriller. One minute she was aroused by the intimate scenes, and the next she was sitting on the edge of her seat as the couple fought off the bad guys.