FAST RIDE (2 page)

What was it Libby had said?
I don’t think you realize how lucky you are to be alive.
Yeah, he was lucky all right. Stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life when what he’d like to do right this very minute was show Holly Mayfield just how much he appreciated her worthy assets.

CHAPTER TWO

H
olly couldn’t believe
she’d actually told Kenny she would be thirty-five next month. Especially when she knew he was a few years younger than her. She’d been afraid he would think she was some used up, wrinkled old prune, who probably couldn’t arouse even a sex-deprived man in a wheelchair. Until he’d made that comment about her breasts.

And what had she been thinking, asking his opinion about a personal thing like that? Like it mattered what he thought. Then again, he had said they were perfect. Had he been honest with her?

And then there was his comment about her needing a spanking. Oooh, if that hadn’t gotten her hot and bothered. She’d actually felt a tingling between her legs. Thinking about Kenny’s hands on her bare butt had turned her insides to mush. If Libby hadn’t been standing there she may have even challenged him to carry out that threat.

“Yeah, right, Holly” she said aloud. “You’re all talk and no fast ball.”

Stepping out of the shower, she ran a towel over her naked body. Then, she wiped the fog from the bathroom mirror and studied herself. Okay, her breasts were small, but still perky. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

And if she sucked her stomach in, she didn’t look too bad. She released her breath with a noisy sigh. Why did she care? Most men would hop into bed with any woman who was willing to give it away, no strings attached, no matter what shape she was in. Wouldn’t they?

Most men, with the exception of Kenny, she feared. What the heck was he waiting for? “Some sex goddess to come and fulfill all his needs, I’m sure,” she said, letting the towel drop to the floor. He would probably need persuaded longer than she’d anticipated to sleep with her. Maybe she should just give up. Yet, Holly couldn’t get him out of her mind.

No wonder he’d been her first choice when she’d thought about having an affair. Kenny was definitely the man for the job. And tomorrow morning she was going to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. After all, since he hadn’t been with a woman in three long years, she’d be doing him a favor too.

It was perfect. No one would be hurt after the affair was over. Hah, she and Kenny practically hated each other, anyway. They’d both be grateful to end it when the time came.

Then they could both move on, feeling a bit more confident, sexually, that is.

She laughed, slipping under the bedcovers naked. Tonight, when she had those erotic dreams about Kenny, she was going to take control.

* * *

Kenny looked up from his drawings to see Holly standing in the doorway of his study. She was wearing a denim skirt much too short for a mother of almost thirty-five, and a white, skintight, tank top.

“Don’t you ever knock?” he asked. He’d been so lost in his work he wasn’t quite sure how long she’d been watching him.

“Sorry. I didn’t want to bother you.” She stepped into the room, moving closer to his work station. And him. Apparently, she didn’t mind bothering him now that he’d finally noticed her.

“Libby’s at the clinic,” he said. “She won’t be home for a few hours.”

“Yes, I know. Actually, I came to see you.”

He set his pencil down and stared up at her. “If you need to borrow something, flour, sugar, whatever, just help yourself. You know where everything is.”

“I didn’t come to borrow anything.” She took another step toward him and ran a tongue across her bottom lip.

She always licked her top lip, but seeing her snake her tongue across the bottom one was even more provocative to him. “Well, I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with . . . your breasts,” he said, careful not to look at them. “Because I told you how I felt about your idea the other night.”

“Yes, and I appreciated your honesty. That’s why I’m here.”

He continued to stare at her. “Oh?”

“I came to thank you,” she said, enunciating every word as if he was half deaf, “and to say that I decided not to have them enlarged.”

“Good,” he said, picking up his pencil. Time to get back to work. “That’s great. Thanks for stopping over to . . . thank me.”

She came to stand directly in front of his desk and ran her tongue over her upper lip this time. God, he wished she’d stop doing that. “Libby will be happy to hear you changed your mind. About the surgery,” he added. And damned if he didn’t look at her breasts, just for a moment. How could he not? She was standing two feet away from him and the damn things were level with his eyes. She couldn’t possibly think he wouldn’t look. Thank God, his erection was hidden by his desk.

“Did you mean what you said?”

“About what?” he asked. “You mean about Libby being happy to hear you changed your mind about surgery?”

Holly shook her head. “No, I wasn’t talking about Libby. What I meant was, did you mean what you said to me the other night? About my breasts being perfect.”

“Oh, that.” He glanced at them again, and he swore she took a huge breath and held it. “Yes. I mean, what I can see of them.” Nice one, Kenny. Now she probably thinks you want to see more. And he did, but he couldn’t tell her that. He shook his head to clear it. “Is there a reason we’re having this conversation?”

“I guess I’ve just been feeling a little insecure about myself since my husband is involved with someone so much younger than me.”

“Ex-husband,” Kenny corrected her.

“Right. Ex-husband.” She leaned forward, placing her hands on the desk, and stared down at his work.

He caught a whiff of her sweet perfume, wondering if she was aware she was showing quite a bit of cleavage.

“What’s Rex up to these days?” she asked, angling her head to see better.

“Who?”

“Rex.” She nodded at one of the drawings on his desk.

“Oh, Rex,” he said, his brain finally clearing somewhat. She was asking about the lead character in his cartoon series. “This and that.”

“I read
Rexcapades
every Sunday. I actually enjoy it. You’re very talented.”

“Thank you.”

“I sort of feel sorry for Rex, though.” She licked her lips again, lifted her hands from the edge of the desk and rested her butt there.

His elbow slipped off the desk as her skirt rode high on her bare thigh. He swallowed hard. “Why is that?”

“He seems to be chasing Rhonda week after week, but she always seems to elude him.”

“Yeah, so?”

She shrugged. “It’s sad.”

Kenny frowned. “It’s supposed to be funny.”

“It is. Sometimes. But I’ve always wondered if Rex’s character is based on some fantasy of yours.”

“No,” he said without hesitation. “Rex is a cartoon character. It’s a comic strip. And why are you asking me all these questions?”

She straightened, pushing her breasts forward a little more. “I don’t know. After I left here the other night, I got to thinking that maybe you’re secretly infatuated with a certain woman. And the reason you write about Rex is maybe your way of sharing your thoughts, your fantasies--”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, cutting her off. He pushed the papers on his desk to the side, out of her line of vision. Before putting anything on the computer he had to sketch it out on paper first. It had always been the way he’d worked best. “Rex has nothing to do with me. What I write has
nothing
to do with me.” If it did, the strip would be X-rated, considering his mind had been in the gutter lately.

“So, it’s all just . . . make believe.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have any secret desires to be with any particular woman, or anything?”

“No.”

She nodded as if she only half believed him. “But, let’s just say hypothetically a woman came into your life . . . someone like Rhonda. Would you be interested?”

“No.”

She blinked at the harshness of his tone. “Why not?”

“Rhonda’s a ditz,” he said firmly. “Holly, I really don’t have time for all this nonsense.”

Ignoring him, she went on. “This is probably none of my business, but I was wondering if you . . . you know, have urges.”

Jesus. “Urges?”

“I mean. You haven’t been out with any women since . . . your accident, have you?”

Kenny glared at her, but didn’t answer. She didn’t deserve an answer. It was none of her damn business.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, God,” she said, sliding off the desk and clasping her hands in front of her. “It never crossed my mind. Maybe you can’t . . . I mean, I know you can’t walk, but . . . can you . . .”

“Are you asking if my dick still works?”

She blinked and bobbed her head in response, her cheeks flushing with color.

“Last I checked, it was still working,” he said. “So, now that you have your answer, I’d like to get back to my strip.”

She backed away slowly, stopping only when she bumped into a stack of newspapers near the doorway.

“Careful,” was all he had time to say.

Losing her balance, Holly toppled backward, landing on the hardwood floor on her pretty little ass with her legs in the air.

All Kenny could do was stare with his mouth open. It was quite a show. Including the glimpse he’d gotten of her baby blue panties.

“Don’t get up,” she said. “I’m fine.” She quickly righted herself and smoothed her skirt into place. Then her poor choice of words must have sunk in because her face reddened even more and her hand flew to her mouth.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that crack about getting up. I--” She stammered for another moment. “I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll just be on my way.”

Good idea. He gathered his drawings and pretended to study them, but he knew she was still standing there, staring at him. He deliberately dropped his pencil on the desk and looked up at her. “Now what?”

“Don’t you ever get lonely?” Her big brown eyes seemed to be searching for the truth.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed loudly. “Lonely? Or horny?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes,” he said, surprising himself that he’d bothered to answer her stupid question. “And, yes, to both.”

“Me, too.” She smoothed her hands over her skirt again. “Do you ever think about making love to someone and pretending they were someone else?”

“No,” he lied.

She shrugged both her shoulders and clasped her hands together. “This might sound kind of silly, but I thought since you weren’t involved with anyone--”

“That you’d come over here and offer me a mercy fuck?”

She released her hands, letting them hang at her sides. “You don’t have to be so crude. I was just trying to be nice.”

“Nice? As in neighborly?”

“Yes. I mean . . . you know what I mean.”

“Don’t do me any favors, okay?”

She gave him an aggravated look and crossed her arms. “I wasn’t suggesting we . . . you know, just for your sake. I expected to get a little something out of it for myself.”

“Holly, we don’t even like each other.”

“That’s where the pretending comes in handy. We can be different people for each other.” She smiled, and then let out a little laugh. “We can be Rex and Rhonda, finally getting it on.”

“You want to pretend I’m Greg, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

“You’re still in love with your ex.”

“No, I’m not. I am so over him it isn’t funny.”

Kenny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. Look, Holly, I appreciate your offer, and if I get any of those
urges
again, I’ll whistle, okay? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to get back to work.”

“Fine, but don’t think anyone else is going to come to you and offer to--” She pressed her lips together. “Oh, never mind.”

Kenny should have been as angry as hell, but instead he laughed once she was out of sight. She couldn’t even say the word, so how the hell was she actually going to do it?

And who was he kidding? The very idea of having sex with Holly, or any woman for that matter, terrified him to the core. He hadn’t been with anyone since Karen. Three years was a long time.

No, he wasn’t ready for anything Holly Mayfield was offering. Even if he could pretend she was someone else. Then again, why the pretense? Maybe he should take her up on her offer and fuck her brains out. It might do them both some good.

* * *

Holly placed another carrot on the cutting board and hacked away at it. She popped one piece into her mouth and tossed the other pieces into the skillet on the stove. She stared out the kitchen window as she chopped vegetables for dinner, spotting Kenny and her son Jordan playing cards on the Larson’s deck.

She’d been watching them from the kitchen window. Spying was more like it, she thought, taking care not to be seen from behind the sheer curtain.

“Jerk,” she mumbled around the carrot in her mouth. She had naturally assumed Kenny would be grateful for her offer. Instead, he’d thrown it back in her face. What had she been thinking? Was she really that desperate? Heat stained her cheeks as she remembered that humiliating discussion from earlier this week.

He’d turned her down flat. Which meant he was not attracted to her in the least. In spite of the comment he’d made about her breasts being perfect.

His turning her down could also mean, he’d been serious when he’d accused her of trying to do him a favor. Like she was the type to go door-to-door and make sure all her male neighbors were being sexually satisfied. Jeez! That made her sound like a whore, and she wasn’t. In fact, the only man she’d ever slept with was her husband.

Of course, Kenny may have passed on her offer because he was still grieving over his dead wife. If that were the case, then she truly felt sorry for him and was ashamed of herself for suggesting an affair in the first place.

But it had been three years since the woman had died. Certainly, a very respectable amount of time had passed. Besides, she didn’t think men could go that long without having sex. At least not normal men.

The thing was, since her plan to seduce Kenny had failed, she was now even hornier than before.

And, yes, desperate.

Last night, she went online and ordered a vibrator to keep her company, but when she’d realized the darn thing was going to take six to eight long weeks before it arrived, she cancelled her order. She could die of sexual deprivation by then. Besides, anything but the real thing--the real thing being Kenny--just didn’t sound very appealing anymore.