Kelly headed for the exit, and Owen fell into step beside him.
“So you like this one, do ya?” Kelly asked.
Owen shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Or are you just trying to get me to help you pleasure her?”
Owen stopped midstep. Because, yeah, if Kelly was up for it, Owen would love his assistance.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Kelly said. “You’re so predictable.”
“No, that isn’t it. Or it wasn’t until you mentioned it. Do you want to join us?”
“Not at all.”
Owen didn’t understand the feeling of disappointment in his chest, so he slugged Kelly in the shoulder. “Then don’t bring it up.”
“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up. I think you’re more worried about my love life than your own,” Kelly said.
“That’s because there’s more to worry about when it comes to your love life. Or complete lack of one.”
Kelly chuckled. “You’re as blind as you are predictable, Tags. Do you remember where you put your shoes?”
“In the locker room.”
“And your shirt?”
“Caitlyn’s borrowing it.”
Kelly nodded in the direction of the front door. “I’ll wait for you in the limo.”
“What about your shirt?” Owen glanced pointedly at Kelly’s bare chest.
“I didn’t bring a shirt.”
“You don’t own a shirt.”
“I own a shirt,” Kelly said. “A shirt. One.”
Owen grinned at him. “You’re an odd duck, Cuff.”
“That’s why you get along with me so well.”
A woman Owen didn’t recognize paused beside them, more diamonds on display than a De Beers store.
“I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars if you let me watch you two fuck,” she said.
When Owen and Kelly just gaped at her, she looked from one to the other and said, “Cash.”
“We were just leaving,” Kelly said.
“We’re not a couple,” Owen sputtered. Did they look like a couple? True they were standing rather close and were both shirtless, but…
“Obviously you’re not a couple,” she said, rolling her eyes. She had a thick European accent, but Owen couldn’t identify its origin. French, maybe. “Why would I pay ten thousand dollars to watch a gay couple fuck?” She laughed. “They’d probably let me watch for free.”
“We don’t need your money, lady,” Kelly said and pushed Owen to uproot his bare feet from the floor.
“Do straight guys actually fuck each other for you?” Owen had to ask.
“Depends on how desperate they are for money,” she said. She grinned slyly. “Or how much they’ve secretly wanted to fuck a man, but never had someone else to blame it on.”
“Owen?” Caitlyn said from just behind him.
Heat flooded his face. He cringed and turned to find her dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a white blouse with an out-of-style flop of a bow at the throat, and a tweed blazer his grandmother would be ashamed to own. And why did her conservative attire turn him on as much as that negligée had? He was in trouble.
“Hey, Caitlyn. Are you ready to leave?”
“Are you whoring yourself out?” she asked.
“What? No, of course not.”
“I’m not sure why you’re even having a discussion with this woman,” Kelly said, nodding toward the diamond queen. “As if you’re considering this bullshit or something.”
“I wasn’t considering it. I just wondered if men actually went through with it. That’s a lot of money.”
Caitlyn’s arm circled Owen’s waist, and her hand slid over his bare belly. “You know I get half of every dime you make, baby. How much did she offer you?”
Owen laughed. Kelly gaped at her. Owen slapped Kelly on the chest. “Inside joke. I’ll explain later. Let’s go.”
“How do you have inside jokes with someone you just met?” Kelly said as he started toward the exit again.
“Good luck finding your fantasy,” Owen said to the woman in diamonds. Sex with another man was one of those sex acts he’d never tried. Probably never would. Letting Caitlyn have her way with him was as close as he was going to get to having a homosexual encounter. He didn’t think reciprocal hand jobs counted.
As the three of them stepped onto the walkway outside, the cool cement registered in Owen’s brain. “Shit, I forgot my shoes,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you in the limo.”
“You sure you want to leave me alone with your girl?” Kelly asked.
“I expect you to take good care of her.”
“Oh, I’ll take real good care of her.” He wrapped an arm around Caitlyn and tugged her against his side. Her eyes opened wide. Kelly was only teasing, but Caitlyn had no way of knowing that.
“I’ll hurry,” Owen said. Assuming he didn’t get distracted between here and there by rich women with money to blow and fantasies to fulfill.
Chapter Six
The limo pulled up just as Owen dashed back into the building. Caitlyn didn’t feel right being plastered to Kellen’s side. Not that it was a bad thing. She just felt as if she were cheating. On a guy she’d just met, barely knew, and who had no long-term interest in her. Boy, was she all mixed up inside.
“You’re tense,” Kellen said near her ear. “You don’t have anything to worry about from me. I was just giving Owen a hard time.”
“You don’t find me attractive?”
“You’re gorgeous,” he said. “I just have a certain type.”
“Big blue eyes?” Like Owen’s…
“How’d you guess?”
“You and Owen need to have a talk.”
Kellen’s dark brows drew together. “About what? So Sara had blue eyes, what does that have to do with Owen?”
So maybe there wasn’t any attraction on Kellen’s end at all.
The driver opened the door, and Caitlyn hurried to climb inside. The relationship between Kellen and Owen wasn’t any of her business. She wasn’t sure why she was so fixated on it.
“Owen will be out in a couple minutes,” Kellen said to the driver. “Just wait here.”
“No problem, Mr. Jamison.”
Kellen slipped into the seat beside Caitlyn. She stared at her hands, which were folded in her lap. She probably shouldn’t have said anything to Kellen about Owen. They knew their feelings for each other far better than she did. She wasn’t even sure if they actually had feelings for each other.
“Why do I need to have a talk with Owen? He already knows what type of woman I’m most attracted to. In fact, he said I’d have better luck getting over Sara if I dated someone who doesn’t look anything like her. What do you think?”
“I couldn’t say,” Caitlyn said. “It must be hard to be reminded of someone you lost when you look at some other woman.”
“I see pieces of her in everyone,” he said. “In everything.”
“Even in me?”
He grinned crookedly and released a huff of a laugh. “Yeah, you have soft lips like Sara’s.” Kellen reached over and touched a finger under her chin. He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip, sending sparks of pleasure down her nerve-endings. “I still remember how she tasted.”
“How did she die?” Caitlyn asked, hell-bent on sticking her foot in her mouth repeatedly tonight. “Was it sudden?”
“Owen told you just enough to encourage annoying questions, I see.” Kellen dropped his hand. “Not sudden. It took her several months to die once they found the tumors in her lungs. But a thousand years with her wouldn’t have been enough.” A distant look stole across his chiseled features. “One was definitely not enough.”
Caitlyn bit her lip and ducked her chin, swallowing around a lump in her throat. It didn’t seem fair that a dead girl had the unwavering devotion and love of someone as vibrantly alive as Kellen Jamison.
“I shouldn’t have asked. I apologize. And…” She looked up to find him staring off into space. Why did she hurt so badly for him? She didn’t even know him, but she could practically feel the devastation seeping from his pores. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
He nodded curtly, avoiding her eyes. She couldn’t possibly ask him if he had any feelings for Owen. Not with him so obviously hurting over a woman. She sat awkwardly beside him trying to think of something, anything, to say.
“I lost my sister a couple of years ago.”
“Cancer?” he murmured.
“No. There was an accident at work. She was training to be an astronaut and…” She couldn’t continue. Morgan’s loss was like a fresh wound every time Caitlyn had to tell someone what had happened to her. “The safety harness failed. They say she didn’t suffer.” Which is more than could be said about anyone who battled cancer.
“It hurts most when you speak of them, doesn’t it?”
She nodded, drawing deep breaths through her nose to keep threatening tears at bay.
“So you find yourself avoiding talking about it,” he said. “To anyone. Because it reminds you that it happened. It wasn’t just a nightmare. It’s reality.”
She wasn’t sure if he was really talking to her. He wasn’t looking at her.
“Don’t break his heart, Caitlyn,” Kellen said unexpectedly. “He likes to pretend he’s a player, but he’s very sensitive when it comes to love. He’s nice. Too nice at times. He only sees the good in people. So when you shred his heart, be it tonight, tomorrow, or years from now, take it easy on him. He doesn’t take rejection well.”
Kellen turned to her then, and she couldn’t speak. Could only stare into his dark eyes. It was as if she were under some sort of spell. After a long moment, he looked away and she found her tongue.
“It’s a bit soon to be talking about love,” she said.
Kellen laughed softly. “I knew I would love Sara for the rest of my life the first time she smiled at me.”
And what in the hell was she supposed to say to that?
Before she could think of a response, Owen slipped into the car beside Kellen. Relief flooded her. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because Owen was all light and wonder, while Kellen was all dark and practicality. Caitlyn needed Owen, because she was more like Kellen than she cared to admit. As soon as the door closed behind Owen, he climbed over his friend’s lap and wriggled until he slipped between Kellen and Caitlyn’s hips.
“You could have asked me to move,” Kellen said, scooting closer to the door to give Owen breathing room.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be sitting on top of her,” Owen said.
“I wasn’t.”
“Not that I blame you,” he said. “Are there any decent sandwich shops around here that are open this late?” he asked Caitlyn.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Don’t you live close by?”
She shook her head. “I’m from Houston. I’m just here visiting a friend.” She smirked. “And enjoying the nightlife San Antonio has to offer.”
“You know what?” Owen said. “Tony has a club in Houston. I’ll take you sometime. We can try out some of your other kinky fantasies.”
“As tempting as that sounds, I don’t think I’ll be visiting another of Tony’s clubs,” she said. “Not that I didn’t enjoy my time there tonight, I did, but my curiosity is sated now. Maybe I’ll try Internet dating next.” Or maybe she’d take for herself. To get over Charles. She hated him, yes, but she still wasn’t over him. She wasn’t ready to love again. Hot sex with Owen? Yeah, she’d been ready for that, had needed that. She was ready for hot sex with Owen again, truth be told. But if he was one of those guys who believed in love at first smile, like his excessively intense friend, then she should probably take her leave as soon as possible. Before she shredded his heart or something equally appalling.
“I’ll see if I can find a place that’s open,” Kellen said as he tugged a cellphone out of his pocket. “What are you hungry for? Wait, I get one guess. Pastrami on rye?”
Caitlyn chuckled. “How did he know that?”
Kellen grinned as he tapped a search into his phone with one finger. “Owen always craves pastrami after sex.”
“Not always,” Owen said.
“Owen usually craves pastrami after sex,” Kellen amended.
“Only when I sweat a lot,” Owen said. “And Caitlyn definitely made me sweat a lot.”
She stared up into his grinning face, fighting the urge to kiss him. Just looking at him made her feel good about herself. Made her happy. She didn’t understand why, but didn’t care overmuch at the moment. She wasn’t supposed to like him this much. The attraction was supposed to fade after their tumble in bed. She was supposed to have sated her lust and lost interest—that’s the way it worked. But she hadn’t lost interest. She was more intrigued than ever.
She still wanted him. For sex. Yes, she understood that attraction, but she wanted more than that too. She wanted to get to know him. Figure out what made him tick. Determine how a guy as good looking as Owen ended up being nice and sensitive. Damn it. Maybe she should have turned down their sandwich excursion and gone back to Jenna’s house. Every extra minute she spent with him made her like him a little more. This was definitely more than she bargained for.
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