The Bride Test (12 page)

N
aked.

That was the only thought Khai’s brain was capable of.

Naked.

He’d looked at her for less than a second before he shut them both in the closet, but it had been enough to see almost everything. Bare shoulders, full breasts that threatened to overflow the cage of her arms, tucked-in waist, lush hips, and white cotton panties with a little bow in the middle.

Delete, delete, delete. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to erase the image from his mind. But that made the sounds from the other side of the closet door louder.

Heavy breathing. Wet kissing sounds. Hands on fabric. The
zzzzip
of pants coming undone. Oh fuck, were they doing what he thought they were doing?

He looked through the slats and saw the couple intertwined on the floor. He didn’t recognize the woman, but her blond hair marked her as a friend of the family. With his Jheri curls and red leather jacket, the man couldn’t be mistaken as anyone other than his cousin Van. Maybe he was pursuing his fourth marriage now. Khai had no clue how that look worked so well for his cousin.

The two moaned simultaneously before their bodies began writhing rhythmically.

Dammit.

Khai turned away from the slats, but then he was looking at Esme again. Light spilled in alluring stripes over her smooth skin, outlining the length of her neck, the ripe curve of her breast, and—

Rule Number Six.

He covered his eyes with a hand and wished he was anywhere else in the world. He’d had enough of thinking about Andy, making people cry, and wanting Esme.

Antarctica would be a good change of pace. Glacial mountain peaks, barren expanses of pristine snow, emptiness, calm, the smallness of man—

“Oh wow. Wow.
Wow,
” the woman cried out.
“Wowie!”

Khai’s focus shattered, and he dropped his hand away from his eyes.
Wowie?
Really? What the hell was Van doing out there?

A smothered choking sound drew his attention before he could spy on the couple again, and he found Esme’s shoulders shaking as she laughed into her palm. He supposed it was kind of funny, but he never laughed along with her. She’d taken an arm away from her chest, and he swore he could almost see one of her nipples. He wasn’t sure with all the shadows, but there was a dark—

Hell. He was in hell.

He stared at the wall, trying his best not to respond to the live porn both outside and inside the closet. It was impossible. The woman’s cries kept getting louder. Did Esme make those sounds? He hoped she didn’t say
wowie
. But something else. Like maybe ... his name. His entire body hardened at the thought, and his skin went ultrasensitive. His pulse sped up. He attempted to put more space between them, but the side of the closet brought him up short. There was no escape.

How much longer could this go on? Were Van and his lady trying to set some sort of world record?

Eventually, the noises came to a horrible crescendo and then quieted. Van tottered drunkenly to his feet and helped his partner up. They straightened their clothes with awkward conversation and disappeared. Khai waited for a count of sixty before he pushed the closet door open and walked out. He took a breath, and the air smelled like— no, he wasn’t going to think about what the air smelled like. An involuntary shudder coursed through him.

Esme followed him out of the closet, her cheeks reddened to a fantastic lobstery sheen, and went to get her green dress and shoes— he’d thought they looked familiar. Keeping her back to him, she stepped into her dress and pulled it up. A woman’s back wasn’t one of the restricted body parts mentioned in the footnotes of the Rules, so he let himself look. But it still felt like rule breaking. The curve at the base of her spine was one of the most elegant things he’d ever seen.

“Help me?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.

His feet took him to her on their own. As his heart pounded loudly in his ears, he fumbled with the zipper and pulled it along the graceful line of her back, covering her perfect skin. When he finished, she turned around, and their eyes met.

“I wanted to wear the wedding dress,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t reach it.”

He glanced at the wedding gown hanging on the curtain rod. Yeah, she was definitely too short for that. “Do you want me to get it down for you?”

A smile worked over her face, one of those mind-scrambling, breathtaking smiles that made her eyes greener. He’d caused that smile. The knowledge sent warmth melting through him, better than a big sweater fresh from the dryer.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked.

Her smile widened. “You didn’t laugh.”

“Why would I?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Where did you go? I looked everywhere for you.”

“I took a walk outside. To clear my head. I’m not ... good with people.” And the banquet hall and hotel had felt suffocating. Once he’d realized what was missing, he’d started to notice all the places where Andy should have been. Getting a drink at the wet bar, standing with the groomsmen, at Khai’s side ...

“I’m also not good with people,” she said.

That was a revelation to Khai, and when he looked at her then, her imperfections stuck out for the first time. One of her eyebrows arched more than the other. Her nose wasn’t as straight as he’d thought. There, on the left side of her neck, a tiny birthmark. She wasn’t a photoshopped image on a magazine. She was a real person, flawed. Oddly, that made her more beautiful. She was also smart in her own strange way, with a sense of fairness that resonated with his own. She wasn’t at all what he’d thought in the beginning.

She stepped toward him, and when she bit her bottom lip, his eyes tracked the movement, mesmerized by the way her white teeth scraped over the full red skin. What if he leaned down and kissed her?

Would she let him? What would it be like to bring their mouths together? To feel those red lips against his own? To delve inside and claim—

Something skated lightly against his hand.

Cold. Unexpected. Wrong.

“What the—” He jerked away on reflex, way too quickly and violently, and she startled and backed away from him with wide eyes.

“Sorry,” she said as she hugged her hand to her chest. She’d touched him, maybe to hold hands, and he’d frightened her. He hated frightening people.

Explanations piled up on his tongue, but he didn’t know where to start. He didn’t even know if he should bother. What was the point? After this summer, they were never going to see each other again.

The impression of her touch remained on his skin, shimmery and unpleasant, and he knew from experience the sensation wouldn’t fade for another day. Light touches did that, and it was worse when people caught him by surprise. Like she had. If she’d warned him, and if she’d touched him the right way, maybe ... He shook his head at his thoughts. There was no maybe.

The incident today with Sara had confirmed he wasn’t meant for relationships. Since that was the case, he couldn’t encourage touching. What if— he didn’t know— what if they explored this attraction between them, and she fell in love with him? That would be horribly irresponsible of him, wouldn’t it? He could never love her back. He’d just hurt her. And he never wanted to do that. She was supposed to be happy.

When he rubbed his hand against his pant leg in an effort to blunt the feeling, she watched the motion with a tightening of her lips.

“If you want to eat cake and dance, I don’t mind waiting for you here.” But he wasn’t going to join her. He was finished with that banquet room. And maybe it was cowardly, but he didn’t want to see Sara crying anymore.

“No, no, let’s go.” She flashed a smile at him and walked efficiently from the room.

As they strode down the hotel’s lavish hallways, Khai was very aware that she didn’t rest her hand in the crook of his arm. She kept a healthy distance between them, and he couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or relieved. He honestly hadn’t liked it before, but he liked this even less.

The ground shook with a rhythmic bass when they passed the doors to the banquet hall where the reception was taking place. The dancing had started. That meant dinner was over, the fruit-filled wedding cake had been eaten, speeches spoken, and the wedding was basically done.

Andy had missed all of it.

He should have been here. He probably would have been a groomsman. If not, he definitely would have been an usher. He would have sat next to Khai during the ceremony and reception. He would have given a speech that embarrassed Sara and made everyone laugh. Right now, he’d be in there dancing because it was Sara’s wedding and he was that kind of brother.

The fact that he
wasn’t
in there dancing made Khai’s shoulders, lungs, and feet heavy. He pulled at his collar again because it was strangling him. At least he knew what was wrong now. It was his sense of order. Things weren’t in their proper place.

It was so important to him to have things in their proper place.

W
hen they got back to Khải’s house, he parked by the curb again. Esme wondered why he didn’t like using his garage, but she didn’t want to ask him. She couldn’t forget the way he’d wiped her touch off his hand.

Why had he acted so disgusted?

He’d had that look in his eyes, the one men got when they wanted to kiss you. She
knew
that look. Or she thought she did. In that moment, all she’d wanted was for him to do it. She hadn’t stopped to think about marriage, green cards, and finding a daddy for her baby. She’d been too mesmerized by the intensity of his gaze and the pull that always drew her to him. She’d wanted to feel his lips on hers, to be close to him, to know him.

But he’d pushed her away.

As she showered and got ready for bed, her eyes pricked with tears a few times, but she didn’t cry. She’d been rejected before. This wasn’t new. It meant she needed to try harder. She could do that. She certainly wasn’t giving up.

Determined, she pulled on her favorite T-shirt, crossed the bathroom, and opened his door like she owned it. He propped himself up on an elbow and frowned at her as he swiped the overlong hair from his eyes. The blankets slid down, revealing his defined chest and part of his muscled stomach. Beautiful man.

Before he could come up with an excuse to send her away, she boldly helped herself to the empty half of his bed and stretched out on her side, facing him. Her shirt cooperated by exposing her shoulder and a good amount of cleavage. He looked. She saw him look. And since she had his attention, she reached up and gathered her hair above her head, away from her neck. The motion caused the neckline of her shirt to shift even lower, scandalously low. Cool air touched a fair amount of her chest, and she didn’t cover herself, even though her heart pounded.

Khải’s Adam’s apple bobbed on a loud swallow before he lay down and turned his back to her, and she suppressed a pleased smile. He wasn’t immune. He didn’t want to, but he liked what he saw.

In the dim light provided by the bathroom night-light, she judged the distance between them to be almost exactly one arm’s length. He worked all day keeping companies that far apart, and then at home, he kept the two of them that far apart. If she worked at it, she’d figure out how to close this distance.

K
hai woke up on Sunday to bright sunlight spilling in through the windows and the insistent tweeting of chatty birds— they were probably the same ones who regularly shat on his car. He’d been certain he’d stay awake all night again, but as he’d lain there cursing Esme, her breasty Esmeness, and his body’s response to her, he’d nodded off and slept clear until morning.

He must have been dead tired, because he hadn’t noticed when she left. Her side of the bed was empty, but the blankets were thoroughly wrinkled. When he reached over, they were cool to the touch. She’d been gone for a while. He hoped she wasn’t ironing his underwear or trimming his lawn with his desk scissors.

Instead of going to hunt for her and do damage control, however, he pulled her pillow close and buried his face in it. It smelled of clean laundry, shampoo ... and her. The smell was faint, but he recognized it. Soft and sweet, gentle. She’d spent the night here, in his bed, in his space, with him, and left part of herself behind. He let himself drag in a lungful of her scent, one more, and a last one before he grew disgusted with himself and got out of bed. So what if she smelled good? She still drove him crazy.

Once he’d gone through his regular morning routine, he headed to the kitchen, expecting to find her covered in jackfruit, cooking, or flipping his refrigerator upside down. But she wasn’t there.

He opened the sliding glass door connected to his kitchen and stepped into his backyard for the first time since he’d moved in. Nothing but dead grass and dirt where that tree used to be. Not even the roots remained, and all the weeds were gone. He had to admit she’d done a good job.

Where was she? She didn’t work Sundays, so his mom couldn’t have come and gotten her— not that she’d ever do that when she could just call and make him drive.

Had Esme ... left him?