Borrowing Alex Read online

  “I think... I love you, Alex,” she whispered, and came apart in his arms.

  With a final thrust, he joined her.

  “Meowrrrr! Pffft!”

  “Wroof! Ruff-ruff-ruff-yip!”

  “Rusty, no! Bernie!”

  Stirring in the bed, Alex slit open an eye. Nikki, clad in her skimpy panties and T-shirt, dashed around the cabin in pursuit of the Siamese and Chihuahua members of the Untrainable Trio. Her bra-less breasts bounced beneath the cotton, and his dick stirred.

  Mmm. They’d made love twice before showering and crawling beneath the quilt to doze and cuddle. However, any more bouncing on Nikki’s part and he’d be “up” for a third round.

  “Playing tag?” he asked lazily.

  “Lucy escaped! Rusty’s after her!”

  With Bernie in hot pursuit. Alex jumped out of bed. The dog miscalculated a turn and bonked against the piano, yelping. Rusty whipped a paw under the old upright, where the garter snake must have hidden. Nikki crouched on the floor, ass poking the air. She pushed away the cat and reached beneath the piano.

  By the time Alex pulled on his boxers—no way was he exposing himself to all those flying claws and paws and fangs—Bernie had recovered enough from the piano-whack to resume harassing Rusty. The cat skidded beneath the bed, scattering magazines out onto the plank floor. Bernie scooted after the feline, and a noisy battle ensued beneath the bed.

  Only Santos sat still. The old dog hunched in the kitchen doorway, his big head lolling on his paws and his baggy eyes bleary.

  Alex reached Nikki. “Let me help.”

  “I have her.” She retrieved the snake from beneath the piano. Standing, she examined Lucy.

  “How did she escape?” Alex asked, touching Nikki’s arm. “Did she slither down the wall?”

  “Maybe.” Nikki paused. “I fed her before our shower, while you were in the outhouse. I guess I didn’t reposition the screen lid properly. She probably dropped to the windowsill and then the chair.” Ignoring the ruckus of Rusty and Bernie fighting beneath the bed, she caressed the snake. “She doesn’t look hurt, but she’s scared, poor baby.”

  As she handled the hardy-looking garter, mellow warmth filled Alex. While her devotion to the critter was admirable, the solution was obvious. He smiled. “We should return Lucy to the wild, Nik. If she’s escaped her terrarium once, she’s bound to do so again. She’s no longer traumatized by Willie, honey.”

  Nikki pouted. “Maybe not, but Rusty did a number on her.”

  “And your cat won’t stop. Lucy belongs outdoors.”

  “I know. I’ll keep her a couple more hours to make sure she’s okay.” She padded barefoot to the chair beneath Lucy’s shelf and climbed up. In the light streaming in from the window, her rear peeked out from her lace-edged panties.

  God help me. He wanted that rear in his hands again. And the neatly trimmed blond curls on her other side... he’d yet to part the slick petals nestled within those curls and taste her.

  He could lick her now, while she stood on the chair. All he had to do was walk over, place his hands on her thighs, and turn her around—after she’d re-housed the snake, of course.

  Blood heating, he envisioned her soft gasp of surprise... and then the pleasure lighting her face. He’d tug off the panties, cradle her bare bottom to support her while she stood, and press his mouth to paradise.

  When she climaxed, her shudders would ripple down his throat and body.

  His erection grazed his boxers, and he shifted his feet on the cool floor. What an asshole he was, indulging in erotic fantasies while she cared for Lucy. He didn’t want her feeling like he only wanted her for sex. Royce had put her through the wringer enough already.

  Speaking of the hairball, where had his former pal gotten off insinuating Nikki was frigid? She was the most giving and responsive lover Alex had ever known.

  Granted, he’d lived like a monk these past few months, but he had a memory, and no woman within that memory held a candle to her.

  Hell, she even had him thinking in clichés.

  He allowed his gaze to travel up her slender legs as she stretched on tiptoe to lower Lucy into the vivarium.

  Making love with his angel-haired wood nymph had recharged his emotions as well as his libido. He loved her, and he wanted the best for her. But was the “best” him? Continually hot for her beautiful body while she struggled with the disintegration of her dream of a future with Royce?

  He’d caught her watching how affectionate and fun the Gotobeds were together, and he’d listened while she’d talked about the differences between her parents’ practical marriage and her grandparents’ loving union. Like Violet and like her own grandmother, Nikki deserved a man who would always, unfailingly, be there for her. A helpmate. A life partner. Not a zit doctor with his nose firmly shoved up his rich patients’ asses.

  And, very possibly, not some burned-out history professor tired of the soulless politicking that accompanied the climbing of the ivory tower.

  Jaw ticking, he turned to tidy the magazines strewn on the floor between the beds. Nikki had read dozens of them over the last couple of days, often with pen in hand. Doing crossword puzzles, she’d said whenever he’d asked.

  As he crouched to fetch the first magazine, Rusty streaked out from under the bed, knocking open the tattered pages. The cat darted for the refuge of the storage boxes, Bernie zipping after him.

  Alex picked up the magazine and skimmed the age-dulled page. A faded red heading announced: Dig Him or Dump Him? How to Tell if He’s “The One.”

  Someone had scribbled answers to the multiple-choice quiz in the margins. Two sets—one labeled “R” and the other “A.”

  He frowned. “R” for Royce and “A” for... him?

  Nikki had compared them?

  He scanned the questions, mainly sexual in tone.

  Suddenly, the magazine was wrenched out of his hands.

  Chapter 10

  Afterglow, Afterglow, Where Art Thou?

  “NIKKI, WHAT—?”

  “I’ll get these,” she said, sweeping past him and bending between the beds. She scooped the remaining magazines into her arms. As she straightened, the pages of the one she’d grabbed from him flapped at the bottom of her messy load. “I know I’m a slob at times, but you don’t have to clean for me, Alex.”

  “You’re not a slob.” But obviously hiding something from him. Crossword puzzles, my foot.

  He stepped toward her, and she backed against the nightstand.

  “How to tell if who’s the one?” he asked.

  “Who who?” Her eyebrows lifted in poorly feigned ignorance. With her curls in disarray from their cuddling and her face scrubbed clean from their shower, she looked both adorably innocent and sexy.

  A top magazine slipped, and she snatched it back into place. Two others thumped onto the plank floor.

  “Who you know who,” Alex said. “I don’t.” Although he’d guessed. “That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Who who’s on first?”

  “What?”

  “No, he’s on second. Or is that third?” She giggled, a blush tingeing her cheeks.

  Another magazine slipped, dangling from her elbow. Alex caught it as it fell. He flipped a doggy-eared page. The headline greeted: Separating the Studs from the Slugs—A Single Girl’s Guide to Weeding out Creeps. A breezy-toned article followed.

  He turned the next page. Another quiz this time. As before, two columns had been scribbled in the margins, tallying two sets of answers: A and R.

  He tossed the magazine onto her bed and picked up the two from the floor. A quick perusal of each revealed similarly toned articles and quizzes.

  “Nikki, what’s going on?” He didn’t mind the content of the magazines, but the manner in which she’d used them—and then lied about it. Was she more mixed up about Royce, and therefore probably about him, than he’d realized?

  “Nothing.” The remaining magazines in her arms shifted. “Just passing the tim
e.”

  “By taking quizzes?” Alex asked beneath the din of Rusty and Bernie racing around the storage boxes.

  “Why not?”

  “Because, correct me if I’m wrong, these quizzes say you’re confused.”

  She blinked those huge baby blues. “You’re wrong.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her chin hoisted. “You said to correct you if you’re wrong. You are.” She tightened her grip on her tilting armload.

  “Sure, I am. And, any second now, Royce will barge in to ‘rescue’ you. Your word, Nikki, not mine.” Uttered less than a week ago.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I’m sorry. But, Nikki, the first time we had sex today, near the end, you whispered that you love me.” Although the softly spoken words had thrilled him, he’d assumed they were driven by her passion. Nikki wore her emotions proudly. However, in the throes of an intense orgasm, she might have mistaken her physical release with love.

  A smile curved her mouth. “I do... love you,” she whispered.

  His chest knotted. There it was again, her uncertainty, her hesitation. She might not recognize it, but he did.

  He pointed out, “More precisely, Nik, you said you thought you loved me.”

  “I did?” She shook her head. “Well, now I definitely know I do.”

  “Because we had sex a second time?” He glanced at the quiz questions in the top magazine he held. “Because it was ‘mind-blowing’? Sex isn’t love, Nik. No matter how great it feels.”

  Hurt flashed on her face, and a steel band gripped his chest. He’d often delivered the same speech to his impressionable sisters, when some guy promising one of them the moon and stars had broken her heart instead. Now, it dawned on him that Nikki, at twenty-five, was one year younger than Cassie and three years younger than Sarah.

  And six years younger than him.

  Those six years immediately gaped wider than the Grand Canyon.

  Alex tossed the two magazines onto his bed. Technically, six years between adults wasn’t a huge difference. His father had eight years on his mom, and they shared a closeness he envied—and craved for himself.

  Yet, when paired with Nikki’s naïveté, those six years gained in significance. He’d always realized she trusted too easily. Damn it, he should have known better than to make love to her while she was vulnerable.

  “Nikki, I don’t want to hurt you—”

  “But you have.” Her features hardened. “Sex isn’t love? I can’t believe you said that. Alex, don’t you think I’ve learned anything? This past week has been very illuminating. Royce and I had sex every once in a while, and what I felt for him was nothing, nothing like what I feel for you.”

  “But you thought it was. Until a few hours ago, you were convinced you loved him.”

  “I wasn’t convinced I loved him so much as I was desperate to believe our engagement wasn’t a lie. That he hadn’t made a fool out of me.”

  Oh Nikki. “You can say that now that you know he used you. But, sweetheart, when you first brought me here, it certainly seemed like you loved him.”

  “Okay, so I was confused. That’s past tense, Alex.”

  “You’re not confused now?”

  She shook her head. The sunlight streaming in from the windows glimmered off her silvery-blond curls, lending her the appearance of a disheveled and disappointed angel.

  And he was the jerk who’d burst her bubble of romantic illusions.

  “Nikki... honey...” He gestured to the magazines clutched against her chest. “Given all the R’s and A’s on those pages, how can you say you’re not confused?”

  “Alex, I told you. Maybe I was confused when I did the tests, but I’m not anymore. And it has nothing to do with you and me making love. I was on the verge of realizing I couldn’t marry Royce before I phoned Karin. That’s why I was so jumpy this morning. Every time you came near me, I wanted to touch you. I wanted to tell you how I felt. But I couldn’t, not while I was engaged. I had to contact Royce. I had to let him explain, to find out what went wrong with my plan. Not because I loved him, but because I felt some warped sense of duty toward him, I suppose.”

  Alex sighed. “You suppose?”

  “Oh my God. After what we’ve shared, you can ask that?”

  “I can ask that because of what we’ve shared, Nikki.” Gut burning, he turned and strode out from between the beds. Bernie whimpered near the back door, while Rusty, hunched atop a stack of cardboard boxes, bared his fangs and hissed at the little dog. “Hell, Nik, I made love with you maybe ninety minutes after you broke up with Royce. I didn’t give you a chance to think. I didn’t allow you a chance to heal.”

  “You gave me a chance.”

  “Not enough of one.”

  “Maybe I didn’t want one.” She chucked the load of magazines onto her bed. One bounced and flipped off the other side. Bernie yelped as it landed near the boxes.

  “I should have given it to you, anyway.” Alex rubbed his face. “Look, I know what you’re going through. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen with my sisters. You came to me—no, worse, you made love with me—on the rebound. And I let it happen.”

  “Give me some credit, Alex. How can I rebound from an engagement that never truly existed? No. I asked you to make love with me because I—” she jabbed her chest repeatedly “—Nikki St. James, being of sound mind and a damn horny body, wanted to.”

  Her breasts jiggled from the force of the jabbing. Man, how he’d like nothing better than to toss his sense of right and wrong out the window and pull her into his arms again. Make love with her until he didn’t know where either of them began or ended.

  But he couldn’t close the chasm he’d created without costing her the time and space she needed.

  “You asked me if you were desirable.” The words scratched in his throat.

  “Because I wanted to know if you thought I was. Because I wanted you. And still do. I want you, Alex.”

  “And I want you. Damn it, I’m struggling here, Nikki. I love you, too. But I need to feel extremely sure that you know what you want. If we became a couple now, who’s to say you’d be truthful about your needs? That you wouldn’t sacrifice your goals to mine? You said that’s what you did with Royce, and what you’ve always done with your family. I couldn’t take it if you lost yourself in me, too.”

  “But I know what I want.” Her voice broke.

  “You think you want me, Nikki. Just like you thought you loved Royce. We’ve been isolated in this cabin for five nights.” Quickly approaching six if he stayed. “That’s a mighty short time frame during which to change your mind about something that will affect the rest of your life.”

  A humorless laugh shot from her. “Just because a person changes her mind quickly doesn’t mean it’s not a valid change! You talk about me not knowing what I want. How I’ve given up my dreams for others.” She clapped her chest. “And I admit it. I have. But you’d better look in a mirror, Alex, because something tells me you’re not too clear about what you want, either. You seem pretty unhappy working at PU, so why keep teaching there?”

  He swore. “This isn’t about me, Nik.” He reached for the clothes on his bed.

  “It’s about both of us.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” He had to make a break now—for her. Before she convinced him otherwise. “What you need is time, and I’ve stolen that from you.”

  “So then what do you propose we do, Kemosabe?”

  He yanked on the baggy pants and old shirt. “I have to go.”

  “Now? Where?”

  “Back to Seattle.” He located a couple of dangling buttons and swiftly latched them. “Violet and Willie are close by, if you need them. And the van is running again, so I’m not stranding you without transportation.”

  She flung up a hand. “You’re still leaving!”

  Cinching his belt, he pushed bare feet into his loafers. “I don’t have a choice. You need time to think. About what’s happened with R
oyce. About what you want to do with your life. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t allow you that time?”

  She snorted. “So you’ll hitchhike back to Seattle and bury yourself in some dusty library again?”

  He didn’t expect her to understand that he had her best interests at heart. “If I have to.” Before she could say or do anything to change his mind, he grabbed his laptop case and wallet and strode out the back door.

  Mouth dropping open, Nikki stood between the beds in her panties and T-shirt. He’d left her. Alex had actually left her!

  She jammed her hands on her hips. Of all the lowdown, patronizing choices he could have made! He’d made love with her—not once but twice—then claimed he had to leave her for her own good. She’d suffered years of her parents and Royce dictating what was best for her, and now she had to endure the same bullshit from Alex?

  She had half a mind—no, make that a full mind—to run into the woods with the leftover rope and duct tape, sneak ahead of him before he traveled too far on the rutted road, and ambush him.

  Jump him from behind and wrestle him to the ground. Leave him hogtied until he saw reason.

  If necessary, she’d resort to the pillowcase and blindfold. She’d even sic Bernie on him—except the traitorous dog now adored the man. But what else could she do? Race after him half-naked?

  Yeah, that made zero sense.

  She glanced around for her jeans. A low moan from across the cabin reached her ears, and she lifted her gaze. In the kitchen entrance, Santos struggled to his feet. His big head lolled between his shoulders, the drool stringing from his muzzle thicker and longer than normal. His pleading brown eyes located her—and he heaved.

  “Santos?” She hurried to the dog. “Are you sick, boy?” But why? She whipped her head to the kitchen counter. Not one single cold cut remained.

  “Santos!” She crouched in front of him. “You know you can’t eat that much meat! On a full belly, to boot!” She sobbed. Why had she left those open deli packets on the counter? “There, there, fella. It’ll be okay. Let it come. Don’t fight it.” She massaged his scruff.