Having Her: Lies We Tell, Book 2 (3 page)

“A safe environment? My God, if you could only hear yourself. And I suppose next you’re going to offer to find a nice man who’d do that for me?”

“I think that’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth all night.”

Kara stared at him for a second, as if she couldn’t believe what he said. Then she turned abruptly, pulling on the door handle and opening the car door. “As much as the offer of you choosing my sexual partners for me fills me with joy, I’m going to have to decline. Then perhaps I’ll burn an effigy of you in the back garden.” She slid out of the car, her dress sliding up over the tops of her stockings and shit, yes, they were actual stockings. With suspenders.

Vin tried not to look.

She turned, leaned in, one hand on the car door, clearly wanting to have the last word. “Unless you’re offering yourself of course.”

It took a moment for her words to make sense. And then when they did, the surge of lust that accompanied them took him by surprise. No. That was not happening. No fucking way.

“I’m not sleeping with you, Kara,” he said curtly.

She lifted a shoulder. “Then keep your nose out of my sex life.”

And she slammed the door in his face.

Chapter Two

“I got my costume!” Ellie leaned over the counter, gray eyes alight with excitement, as Kara put the finishing touches on the lattes she was making.

Kara pushed the coffees toward a couple of people waiting at the other end of the counter, then turned back to her best friend. “Oh crap, already?”

“Of course already. NZ Con’s next week, Kar.”

Yeah, so it was. She and Ellie had been waiting for it for months, the last big deal before Ellie left for Tokyo. A couple of days of hanging out with the gaming/manga crowd and, Kara was hoping, making a few more contacts in the comic industry. Always useful when you owned a business dealing in manga, gaming and the Internet.

Ellie, with typical Ellie enthusiasm, had been getting her costume custom-made. Unlike Kara, who hadn’t been able to afford it. All her spare cash went back into Manga Café Extreme, the manga/Internet café she owned, and every cent had to since the rents in central Auckland were exorbitant.

“What about you?” Ellie asked as Kara started preparing Ellie’s usual latte. “Have you got one yet?”

“Uh…no.” She’d done a trawl through various costume shops and had come up with nothing. Or at least nothing she wanted to wear. There had been the slave costume, the one that Princes Leia had worn in
Return of the Jedi
, but every bloody Con she’d been to there’d been at least a half dozen slave Leias. It wasn’t like the costume was original or anything.

And then there was the fact that the costume exposed a lot of flesh. Kara wasn’t skinny like Ellie. She had curves. Lots of them. Far too many for a metal bikini and bit of fabric to be the only thing between her and total humiliation.

“No?” Ellie frowned at her. “But you’re looking, right?”

“Yeah, I’m looking.”

Elle’s frown deepened. “Hey, anything up?”

A small stab of guilt went through Kara. She’d totally meant to tell her friend all about her hideous evening with Wayne and yet every time she went to talk about it, all she could see was Vin’s perfect face and the anger in it. And the hot, liquid rush of humiliation that had swept over her.

I’m not sleeping with you, Kara.

She couldn’t think why she’d even suggested it in the first place, only that she’d been so pissed off with his arrogance. With his patronizing insistence on looking out for her. She’d been looking out for herself since she’d left her foster home at seventeen, and she didn’t need him assuming he had some sort of responsibility because of her association with Ellie. She was twenty-five, for Christ’s sake.

So yeah, she’d said it to get a reaction. But the look on his face had hurt some part of her she wasn’t quite prepared to acknowledge yet.

As if she’d ever want to sleep with an arrogant son of a bitch like him anyway.

“No,” Kara said, shoving the nozzle into the milk jug and pulling the switch to turn on the steam. The noise effectively cancelled out any further comments her friend wanted to make. At least for the meantime. But Kara could feel Ellie’s puzzled gaze on her, probably wondering what the story was.

Your brother’s being a prick. He won’t sleep with me and I kind of want him to.

What? No, she did
not
want him to. Not in any way, shape or form.

“Kara,” Ellie said as the noise from the espresso machine died away. “Come on. What’s got you so pissed off?”

“Go sit down and I’ll bring you your coffee.”

“Kara—”

“And then I’ll tell you, okay?”

Perhaps it would be good to tell Ellie. Not the stuff about sleeping with her brother because that would be weird, but maybe about Wayne. And maybe she could ask her why Vin was always such a grumpy, mean bastard.

Not that she cared of course, but still…

The rest of the customers in the café were either all busy in the Internet part of it or sitting around various tables talking or reading, so Kara skirted around the counter with Ellie’s coffee, coming over to their usual table which consisted of a couple of ragged sofas that gave off a student-flat kind of vibe.

Ellie folded her arms as Kara approached, platform boots on the low table in front of her, a stern look on her face. The resemblance between her and her brother was slight and yet sometimes Kara caught echoes of Vin in her friend’s delicate features. Especially when Ellie was giving her a
tell me everything you know
look.

Kara put the latte on the table beside Ellie’s feet then sat on the couch. “Yeah, okay,” she said. “Something’s up.”

“Huh. No kidding.” Ellie reached for the coffee. “So? Spill.”

“A couple of nights ago, I picked up this guy in a bar.”

Ellie’s eyebrows lifted. “A one-night stand, Kar?”

“That was the idea. Except…” She stopped, that strange sense of vulnerability and humiliation washing over her again.

“Kar?” her friend murmured. “What happened?”

“Nothing bad.” She met Ellie’s worried look. “I couldn’t go through with it. I just got… I dunno. We went back to his place and he just sat there, looking at me, waiting for me to do something and I couldn’t think of what to do and…” She hesitated. “I felt like an idiot. So I left.”

Ellie leaned forward, put her coffee down, then put an awkward hand over Kara’s where they were clasped in her lap. “Aw, Kar.”

The sympathetic expression in her friend’s eyes and the comforting hand over her own made Kara uneasy. She could give out plenty of sympathy and comfort herself, but she didn’t like being on the receiving end.

Gently she eased her hands away from Ellie’s. “It’s okay. I was fine. I tried to ring you but you’d left your phone at Vin’s office.”

“Oh, yeah, I did. Sorry. He gave it back to me yesterday.”

“Actually, he ended up picking me up from the guy’s place and taking me home.”

“Of course he did. I hope he wasn’t a prick about it.”

“He kind of was.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “I’d apologize for his prickishness, except you know what he’s like.”

Kara sighed. “I do. He was meaner about it than normal though.” Way meaner. If she’d been a weaker kind of woman, the comments about her appearance and attitude would have hurt.

Luckily she wasn’t that kind of woman.

Yeah? Then why did you get so angry with him?

Well, she’d tried not to. Had done her best to let it go. Because what did she care what he thought of her? She didn’t, that’s what.

“Don’t tell me,” Ellie said. “He complained about your clothes.”

“Yeah.”

“God, did he give you the third degree about what you were doing out at night by yourself?”

“That too.”

“Oh, Kar—”

“It’s fine. I told him he was an asshole.”

Ellie let out a sigh. “Look, I know he’s difficult sometimes, but he means well.”

“Yeah but he doesn’t need to do that by being all judgmental and crap.” Kara smoothed down the stretchy blue miniskirt she wore. “Or telling me that my attitude is the reason why I’m still a virgin.”

Her friend’s red brows rose into her hairline. “Oh my God, you told him about that?”

“I did.” And she’d been rather pleased with the look of surprise that had crossed his handsome face. Pleasure that had swiftly turned into regret when he’d gone into
must protect the virgin
mode. Not a huge shock knowing Vincent Fox as she did.

Ellie sat back on the sofa. “Why?”

“He was pissing me off with his attitude. And I guess I wanted to shock him.”

“I can imagine how that went down.”

Kara fiddled with the hem of her miniskirt again. “Yeah, not good. He seems to think I can’t look after myself.”

“Welcome to my world,” Ellie said dryly. Then she sighed again. “Look, if it helps, he’s kind of been looking out for me my whole life, and I think that just naturally extends to anyone associated with me. It’s just the way he is.”

“It’s annoying.” She wouldn’t mention Vin’s offer of vetting her potential sexual partners. Man, maybe Ellie had gone through the same thing. Maybe Vin had even vetted Cam, Ellie’s ex. God, if he had, Kara didn’t want to know.

“Tell me about it.” Ellie picked up her coffee again and took another sip. “He’s just trying to make sure everyone’s safe, I guess.”

Safe. Yeah, well, she couldn’t deny that she did feel safe with Vin. Especially when he’d turned up that night and those guys had gone running. But for another part of her, safe was the last thing she’d felt. Such as when those storm-blue eyes of his had glanced down at her legs in the car as she’d crossed them. Where the hem of her dress had ridden up. His gaze had lingered and she’d felt a shiver go through her. A delicious shiver.

“Kar?”

Crap. Please don’t say she was mooning around about Vin. He was hot, oh God was he hot. But it’s not as if she wanted to lose her virginity with him. Because in addition to being hot, he was also the most take-charge son of a bitch she’d ever met.

Y’know, in certain situations, that could be quite good. Especially in situations where you don’t know what you’re doing…

Kara’s mouth went dry and she was conscious of a sudden, deep ache between her thighs. Vin, telling her what to do. Exactly what to do. And when. And where…

“Kara?”

Kara blinked. “Yeah, what?” Her voice had gone a little husky.

Ellie frowned at her. “Are you okay? You’re blushing.”

Holy shit, she probably was. “I’m fine.” Kara pushed herself off the couch and turned toward the counter. There were no customers but surely something needed cleaning. Anything so she didn’t have to confess that she was having illicit thoughts about her best friend’s older brother.

“Hey, where are you going?” Ellie said. “I wanted to talk about your costume.”

Kara stopped. “I’ll probably go with slave Leia.” Really, why the hell not? And hey, if she was lucky, she might pick up someone from the Con. He probably wouldn’t be quite the kind of normal she wanted, but who knew?

Ellie gave her a skeptical look. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Nothing says I want to get laid like a metal bikini.” Thing was, for some reason she couldn’t stop thinking of Vin seeing her in it. Man, if he’d thought her black dress was way too much, the slave Leia costume would give him a heart attack.

“You’re smiling,” Ellie observed. “You have a plan?”

Kara grinned. “Maybe.”

One was certainly coming to her. A way to goad the hell out of Vincent Fox. Pay him back for all the crap he’d said to her in the car. All the humiliation.

Oh yeah. He wasn’t going to know what hit him.

Vin narrowed his gaze at the two apprentices playing silly buggers with one of the nail guns not far from where he and Hunter were putting in some roof beams.

“Hey,” he said. “What the fuck are you two doing?” He didn’t raise his voice—he never had to. The apprentices soon got the message that he didn’t stand for any idiocy on his building sites. Not ever.

The two guys shot him guilty looks and instantly stopped waving the nail gun around, getting back to work.

“Got a problem?” Hunter asked, standing away from the ladder as Vin came down it.

The midday sun was hot, shining through the ribs of the roof beams, scattering barred light over the dusty floor of the half-built house. Once on the ground, Vin dragged off his T-shirt, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with the warm cotton.

“No. No problem,” he muttered. A complete lie of course. He’d been a foul mood for the past couple of days and couldn’t seem to work out why.

Of course you know why.

Yeah, dammit, he did. Kara Sinclair.

He hadn’t been able to get the bloody woman out of his head. That tantalizing glimpse of her stocking as she’d gotten out of the car, black lace against skin the color of pale honey.