Promise Me

For now.

Chapter Two

Vaughn

My mouth tastes like Satan puked in it, and my skull feels a couple sizes too small for my brain, but I can account for both those situations. Cuervo Gold and bad judgment share the blame. What I can’t account for is that I have no freaking clue where I am.

I’m pretty sure I’m on a sofa, but it’s definitely not mine. Mine’s leather and smells like spilled drinks and haphazard sex. I’ve woken up with my cheek sweat-glued to the Italian hide often enough to recognize its sticky embrace without opening my eyes. This cushion I’m crashed across feels as if it’s stuffed with the feathers from cherubs’ wings, and it smells like a field of flowers, after a rain shower…in heaven. Waking ensconced in all this disorienting plushness has an unanticipated effect on me. Suddenly I’m hard as a rock. Ridiculously, almost painfully hard, and I see pictures—or maybe flashbacks—in my mind. Pale blond hair. Big blue eyes. A white tank top doing the legal minimum to conceal full, soft cleavage and a bitable ass stretching the limits of a pair of little red shorts.

Angel? Trixie?

Neither sounds quite right, but I could do some seriously perverted things on this sofa while fantasizing about her.

Instead of molesting the furniture, I pry one eyelid open and gut out the pain that lances my brain as the light assaults my sluggish pupil. After a few blinks of protest and a halfhearted groan, I submit my other eye to the same violation. All I can see is some nubby beige low-weave rug with a geometric bamboo print, but it’s distinctive enough to tell me I’m in my neighbors’ living room.

Shit. Sally and Jack are cool neighbors, but they’re not exactly part of my crowd. They’re like my parents’ age. I strongly doubt they invited me over at midnight to slam tequila shots until I passed out, plus they’re out of town, which leaves me at a loss as to what the hell I’m doing here. I push myself upright and rack my mind for details from last night. Nothing swims into focus except the blonde and…a conversation about Speed Racer? But I can’t argue with facts. I’m definitely in my neighbors’ sun-drenched living room after spending a drunken night on their highly fuckable couch.

While I sit here trying to get my bearings and convince my cock to stop doing its best porn star impression, someone slams through the front door. The next thing I know, a girl wearing a black tank top and microscopic cut-offs sweeps into the living room, lugging a guitar case and an oversized rolling duffel bag that looks like it’s been around the world about sixty million times. She stops short when she sees me and fumbles the handle of the bag.

The duffel hits the rug with a thump, but the guitar receives more care as she places the case on the floor next to the bag. Snowflake bounds into the room in Full Metal Jacket mode, skids to a halt in front of the new arrival, and defends her turf with a rapid-fire series of yips. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before—she’s seven pounds of explosive canine ferocity and she’s not afraid to pull the pin on it—but this morning her display of dominance threatens to make my ears bleed. Then she lets loose with a low, rumbly sound I don’t recognize, almost like she’s trying out another language. It takes me a moment to realize she’s growling.

“Hey, girl.” I lean over, put my hand at Pom level, and give her a c’mere whistle. She hops between us, unsure she can abandon her captive, and barks at me as if to say, “Intruder, stupid human! I have cornered an intruder!”

“Who’s a good girl, Snowflake?” I wiggle my fingers at her, which is our code for someone’s about to get a heap of personal attention from her big, furless slave next door. She gives the blonde one last growl and bounds over to me. I lift her up and nuzzle her furry face. “There’s my girl. Yes, you are. Such a good guard dog.”

She squirms in my arms and licks my face, unselfconscious of her dog breath, and for half a second I’m not sure if I’m going to pass out, throw up, or die on the spot. I settle her on the sofa so I’m out of range of what has to be the most lethal weapon on earth and inhale blissfully odor-free air through my nose. She promptly claims the pillow and sits as if it’s her throne. Satisfied I’ve taken the Pomeranian off high alert, I turn to the guitar player.

She cracks a wad of pink bubble gum before a slow smile curves her lips. “Aunt Sally didn’t mention they’d gotten a second pet. But that’s okay.” She pauses and blows another bubble as her eyes drop to take in the show going on behind the fly of my jeans. “If you’re friendlier than that walking hairball, I might even let you sleep in my bed.”

I drag the nearby blanket over my lap and meet her brazen curiosity with some of my own. She’s not the angel from last night. This girl is tall—legs for days on full display in the little shorts—long, straight, sun-streaked hair, but strangely familiar blue eyes. And she’s flirting as naturally as other people breathe. Even loaded, I don’t think my memory would be that far off. Besides, going by the luggage and her surprise at finding me here, it’s safe to assume she’s just arrived.

Her presence tugs a thread of a conversation I had with Sally last week. Her nieces are coming to house-sit for the summer while she and Jack cruise to Australia? Antarctica? Who knows, maybe both.

“Hey. I’m Vaughn. I live next door.” More little flashbacks flicker through my mind as I piece together an explanation for why I’m here. I remember walking out of the house last night with some half-assed idea of clearing my head, because I’d lost the mood to party, but then…things get jumbled. I recall the glow of taillights coming at me, and then someone tackled me and I landed on the concrete beneath a sexy blonde with soft

curves and quick reflexes. I’m pretty sure she offered up the sofa. “I…uh… My place got kind of hectic last night, so the other girl let me crash here.”

Light-colored eyebrows lift at my halting explanation. Instead of introducing herself, Legs folds her arms in a gesture reminiscent of the blonde last night and frowns. “Other girl? What other girl?”

Uh-oh. I’m afraid to say anything else, because more details from Sally are pouring into my consciousness. Her nieces are half sisters, raised separately, and they aren’t what you’d call close. And clearly she failed to mention the family reunion to at least one of them when she pitched the house-sitting gig. This girl’s looking at me expectantly, like there’s no way I’m getting out of here with a smile and a shrug. I stand and prepare to make a fast exit. “Oh, hey, I should take off—”

“What other girl?” Mouth tight, she steps up, right into my space. I have to vault over the sofa if I want to make a hasty getaway. Snowflake musters up a halfhearted snarl from the comfort of her cushion, but the girl in front of me snarls right back. “You want a piece of me, you overgrown rat? Take a number.”

In response, the dog who routinely intimidates UPS guys twenty times her size jumps down from the couch and flees the room as fast as her stubby legs can carry her. So much for man’s best friend.

“Um.” I manage a sidestep and glance around, hoping something I spy will jar a name out of the haze of my hangover. “Blonde. Blue eyes about your shade, and…”

“Fuuuuck,” we say at the same time.

I swear because my gaze lands on the mantel clock across the room, which reads quarter till eight. My very punctual, very sadistic trainer will be knocking on my door in fifteen minutes, hell-bent on kicking my ass for the next two hours. If I’m even a minute late he’ll make me regret those sixty seconds for the rest of my natural life.

The girl drops onto the sofa and presses the heel of her hand to the center of her forehead as if staving off a headache. “Oh God. Not perfect princess Kendall.”

“Kendall! Yes”—I snap my fingers—“that’s her name.” And that’s as deep into this family reunion as I’m getting. If I were any kind of a human being I’d stick around and try to defuse the powder keg of a situation taking shape before my eyes. Kendall did me a solid last night and I should return the favor, but I don’t know that she’d appreciate my interference, and honestly, I’ll have my own powder keg of a situation to handle if I don’t get moving.

“So, yeah, tell her bye for me, okay? I gotta bolt.” I fold the blanket into a semi-polite drape across the back of the sofa and then pat the front pocket of my jeans out of habit. No keys. I’ll have to look for them after I’m done working out. “See you later…”

“Dixie,” she supplies.