The Schemer (Harbor City 3)

“You didn’t exactly show me,” Kiki shot back, her words coming in fast enough that if she wasn’t already on her second Diet Coke of the day, she was about to pop it open at any second. “The moron sent it in a group text to you, me, and ten of our closest artsy-fartsy friends.”

That had been bad. The art community in Harbor City wasn’t tiny, but gossip sure spread like it was—add to that the fact that Warren was an art critic who had made plenty of enemies by royally roasting more than a few artists and galleries, and it was the kind of schadenfreude that a lot of people were going to revel in. She’d been about to break up with him when the picture went out, and then she’d felt so embarrassed for him that she’d waited another week before she’d ended things. Even with the delay, it had been awkward.

“Anyway, stop trying to distract me with sad cocks and explain what you mean by accidentally kissing your smoking-hot downstairs neighbor who also just happens to be loaded enough to own your building and a few others,” Kiki said with a groan. “I swear to God, if I would have known those little tidbits last night while he was trying to eye fuck you, I would have shoved you to the side and hauled him away like I was a cavewoman and he was the first box of chocolate-covered cherries ever invented.”

More power to her. It wasn’t like Everly wanted the cocky bastard. “You can have him.”

“Uh-huh.” Kiki didn’t bother disguising the sarcasm. “That sounded totally convincing. So about the accidental kisses, what did you do, trip in those obnoxious shoes of yours and land ever so conveniently with your tongue in his mouth?”

“It just happened. Once in the parking garage when I threatened to run him over and once last night in the gallery when we were standing too close and arguing. And then I thought it was going to happen again in his kitchen, but I got the hell out of there before anything could.”

“Sounds like it’s a little too late for that,” Kiki said. “My vote is you jump him and ride what I really hope is a big cock all the way to Orgasmville.”

Her girlie bits liked that idea—a lot. “That is not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

Lots of reasons, chief among them the little voice in the back of her head that always reminded her exactly where she was from and that people like Tyler—who’d buried their working-class roots under six miles of voice lessons and money—wanted only one thing when they trolled for a Riverside girl. Temporary fun. She’d seen the results of that firsthand with what had happened with her mother. Hell, she was the result of it. She might not be looking for forever, but that didn’t mean she was willing to be someone’s version of slumming it. All of that was a little heavy before she was at least three cups of coffee into her day, though, so she went with the obvious reasons.

“He owns the building and he’s Mr. 2B.”

“Yeah,” Kiki said. “Mr. To Be Your Train to Happy Town.”

Everly almost spewed coffee across her rarely used stove. “I’m beginning to think you’re the one who needs to get laid.”

“That may be, but you’re right there with me, sister.”

That, unfortunately, was way truer than Everly wanted it to be, considering she was about to spend the afternoon with Mr. 2B—without going on any trips to Orgasmville, Happy Town, or Climaxopolis.

Chapter Eight

Everly was trying to kill Tyler. How did he know this? That dress. Seriously.

Traffic had been light, but he’d still been in a car with Everly for just over an hour. That was more than long enough to have the vanilla-and-musk scent of her perfume embed itself in his head. She’d worn a dress—black, of course—made out of some kind of sweater material that clung to her curves and snuck up to mid-thigh when she’d sat down in the passenger seat. It wasn’t that he’d noticed. It was that he hadn’t been able to stop noticing. Add to that the knee-high black boots with silver spikes for heels and the way she’d tucked her black hair into a knot-roll thing at the base of her skull, showing off her long, delicate neck, and it went a long way to explaining why he’d missed the turnoff to Ferranti’s house on Skyview Lane even though the navigation system in his Mercedes had notified him in plenty of time.

“Second time’s the charm,” Everly teased as she flipped the visor down and popped the cap on her lipstick.

Watching her out of the corner of his eye as she opened her mouth into a perfect O and slid the silky red color across her lips almost sent him off-roading in Ferranti’s yard.

Now wouldn’t that make a great impression, dipshit. The guy wouldn’t be able to stop himself from hiring you after you do donuts in his landscaped-to-the-gills front yard.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Everly said, capping her lipstick and dropping it into her purse. “Alberto’s a sweetheart and Carlo is so laid-back he’s like the Italian version of a surfer dude. I haven’t met his fiancée yet, but I’m sure she’s lovely.”

Nervous? She thought he was nervous? His dick sure as hell wasn’t nervous. His right hand just wasn’t the companion either he or his cock was looking for. He needed to get laid. Then he’d stop thinking about his upstairs neighbor and her sexy fucking high heels and killer ass—not to mention he’d stop kissing her every time they spent more than ten minutes together. By the time he pulled into a parking spot near Ferranti’s four-car garage, he was white-knuckling the steering wheel.

“Okay, this quiet no-talking thing is starting to freak me out,” Everly said, twisting in her seat and pulling the soft material of her dress tighter across her tits. Not that he knew it was soft. He’d just spent a good portion of the drive imagining how it would feel, that’s all. “Is this about last night? Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. It wouldn’t—couldn’t—between us. Especially not now that I know you hold my apartment and gallery lease in your fiendishly strong hands. Shit. Fiendish hands. Not fiendishly strong. I don’t know where that adverb came from. Must be the lack of sleep. Not that you caused my lack of sleep, it’s just…I’m shutting up now.”

Damn he was off his game—or too fixated on how being this close to her was wreaking havoc on him to consider he might be doing the same to her. The running commentary on everything from Picasso’s blue period to modern sculpture on the drive here? It was because she was nervous. About the lunch or about him? Like always, he bet on himself. Was he an asshole if he admitted that pumped up his ego? He considered. Yeah, it did. That was okay. He could live with it—especially since he needed an ego the size of Ferranti’s six-bedroom beach house to make this deal happen.

Pivoting in his seat, he looked at the normally unflappable tough chick fidgeting beside him. “It’s going to work out fine. We’re friends and maybe a little more. It’s the truth, so you don’t have to be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.

You’re nervous.” She toyed with her hair and tucked a loose strand behind her ear. “Anyway, saying we’re friends is being pretty generous and saying we’re maybe a little bit more is totally off-the-charts wrong.”

Oh really? That was how she wanted to play this? Like the skin-sizzling need driving those kisses had only been on his end of things? He didn’t think so. “My tongue has been in your mouth twice in the past week.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That’s just an ew way to put it.”