KIRKLAND: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Read online

  Ash smiled, even as he continued to watch Joss and Kirkland. I saw Kirkland shoot a look toward a blonde on the other side of the garden, then look at Ash and me. I thought about waving, but I thought that would be a little odd given our relationship, but there was something about the way he was looking at me that made me feel as though it would have been appropriate just the same.

  “Ricki’s been an amazing influence on my brother.”

  “She adores him.”

  “I know. And I’m glad. David needs someone who will inspire him, and I think Ricki does that for him.”

  I found Ricki in the crowd, talking with a gentle man named Eric. She’d introduced us earlier. He’d been married to her friend Arabelle before her death. She seemed really pleased that he had come to Los Angeles for the wedding.

  “Ricki’s been through a lot,” I said. “So has David. I think that’s something that draws them together.”

  Ash turned back to me. “I’d love to take you up on your offer,” he said, making a little bubble of excitement rise in my chest. “I think it’ll be good for the company.”

  “And for you.”

  “The company is always my priority. I have these employees to take care of.”

  “Employees? The way I hear it, you guys are more like a family.”

  Ash nodded, looking around the garden like a proud father. “We are. And our family is growing, what with David and Donovan getting married and Joss about to have a baby. I want to be able to reassure them that the company will be running in the black for as long as they need it to.”

  “That leaves you and Kirkland.”

  “What?”

  I half smiled. “Everyone else has found a new sort of happiness this past year—except for you and Kirkland.”

  “I found love a long time ago.”

  “Will you let me ask questions about that on the record?”

  “When the time is right.”

  I touched his arm lightly. “Thank you, Ash.”

  He smiled a big, bright smile that reminded me of David’s. And Kirkland’s, somehow.

  “Thank you, Mabel. I appreciate you thinking of me.”

  “Oh, it’s not for me. I’ll make tons of money off of a magazine that features you as the first cover story.”

  He shook his head. “I doubt that, but I appreciate your enthusiasm.”

  He walked away then, going off to join Donovan and his wife, who were speaking to some of the other guests. I wandered to the buffet table and helped myself to a couple of teeny sandwiches, thinking how ridiculous it was to make food so small. Maybe I could talk Kirkland into hitting a drive-thru on the way home.

  We still hadn’t talked about that kiss. I wasn’t even sure Kirkland remembered it had happened. Or maybe I was just the only one who felt like it was something we should talk about.

  “You okay?”

  His voice moved over me like warm water after a cold swim. I turned and tried not to look to eager to have him so close.

  “Who were you talking to earlier?”

  “Joss. She’s another one of our operatives.”

  “You two looked cozy.”

  “We’re good friends. She and I had a lot in common until a few months ago.”

  “Like…?”

  “Like she didn’t speak because of something bad that happened to her a long time ago. And I…” He stopped—as if he was about to say something that he didn’t want to say to me. He studied my face for a long moment. “And I knew how that felt.”

  “How what felt? Wanting to shut the world out?’

  “Wishing everyone would just leave you alone in your own grief.”

  “Are you talking about your mom?”

  He shrugged, reaching for a teeny sandwich. In other words, he was done talking about this.

  I touched my hand to his stomach, shocked that I actually touched him without being invited to do so and excited to feel the warmth of his body through his silk shirt. I felt him draw in a hard breath at my touch, but I wasn’t sure why. Did he like the feel of my hand on him, or was he just as shocked that I would do such a thing?

  He wrapped his hand around my wrist and pulled my hand back.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to go,” he said softly.

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  His eyes were full of storm clouds when he looked at me again. But he just nodded.

  “Wait here. I’ll go bring the car around.”

  I watched him go, thinking of what I’d resolved to do and wondering if now was the right time to tell him. But, again, I wasn’t sure there would be a right time.

  I crossed the garden to where Ricki was still talking to Eric. I touched her arm, drawing her away.

  “I’m going.”

  “Oh, not so soon!”

  “I still have a few things to do for work before this weekend.”

  “Well, I expect you at my place at five tomorrow so you can help me out with a few more things before we head to the bachelorette party.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “And tell Kirkland that what happens at the strip club stays at the strip club.”

  I laughed. “I’ll tell him.”

  She kissed my cheek, whispering close to my ear, “Take care. And don’t forget what I said.”

  “I won’t.”

  Kirkland was waiting for me at the back of the hotel when I headed in that direction. Ash raised a hand when he saw me leaving. I waved back, a grateful smile returning his gesture of kindness. When I turned back to Kirkland, those storm clouds were back in his eyes. I didn’t understand them.

  He held out his hand, but then he refused to take mine. Instead, he guided me into the hotel with a hand on the center of my back for just a second. Then he let his hand fall.

  Was it so bad, touching me?

  He was quiet in the car. I stared out the window, part of me silently willing him to speak, the other wrestling with what I’d wanted to propose to him. When I finally got up the courage to speak to him, he spoke to me at the same second.

  “We need to stay close to the apartment for the rest of the day.”

  “Did it mean anything to you?”

  He looked over at me. “What?”

  I shook my head. “Has something new happened?”

  “No, but Detective Warren called and said they were unable to get anything usable off the note. Since you’re going out tomorrow night, Friday night, and the wedding is Saturday, it’d probably just be better to stay close to the apartment for the rest of today.”

  “Okay.”

  He slowed the SUV to a stop at a light and turned to me. “Were you asking a question?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I started to nod, to brush it off as though it really was nothing. But then I realized it was something, and I really wanted to know.

  “You kissed me.”

  “I did,” he said, glancing at me, but then focusing on the car ahead of us.

  “Why?”

  “Because it seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

  That seemed like a logical answer. We began to move again, gliding through the busy city streets like we were any normal couple having a normal conversation on a normal Wednesday commute. But we weren’t.

  “I rented a hotel room for the night of the wedding.”

  He glanced at me. “Okay.”

  “I don’t want David hacking the security system there or anyone watching the room.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to relieve me of my virginity that night.”

  The car swerved a little, Kirkland’s hands slipping on the wheel. He righted it quickly, pulling himself up higher in the seat as he focused doubly hard on traffic. It was a few seconds before he said anything, and when he did, it was something of a grunt.

  “You knew I was a virgin, right?” I asked.

  He glanced at me. “I suspected.”

  “It wo
uld be humiliating if it came out. Can you imagine my investors and the suppliers and the studios, what they would say if they knew I was a virgin? I run this huge porno website, yet I’ve never seen one of my own movies all the way through. I don’t even know what it means to give a man a blowjob. I don’t know what it feels like to have an orgasm…”

  He started making these sounds that I’d never heard come out of another human being. He pulled to the side of the road and just stared at his hands for the longest time. Then he focused on me.

  “You want me to…”

  “…relieve me of my virginity. Yes.”

  “Mabel, that’s something you should do with someone who cares about you.”

  “Look at me,” I said softly, tears of humiliation threatening to choke me. “Do you think there’s a long line of men waiting in line to be with me?”

  “I think you are incredibly beautiful, and a man will eventually be smart enough to see that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve waited long enough. I just want to get this over with.”

  “That’s…sex is…”

  “You sleep with any woman you can talk into your bed. How is that any different than this?”

  “It is different. Those women are experienced. They know what they’re getting into when they go home with me.”

  “Then it’s because I’m not experienced enough?”

  “Mabel, that’s not it.”

  “Then why?”

  He wouldn’t look at me. He kept staring at his hands. I felt like a fool, as if I’d just walked naked into a roomful of my parents’ church elders. I couldn’t even get the guy who slept with everyone to go to bed with me. How pitiful was that?

  I climbed out of the car, suddenly feeling as though I was suffocating. I walked quickly down the street, not sure where I was, let alone where I was going. I just needed to get out of there.

  “Mabel!”

  Kirkland grabbed my upper arm, twisting me around so that I was forced into his chest.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  “Away!”

  “Why? What did I say?”

  A sound that was like a strangled chuckle slipped from between my lips. “You don’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “You kissed me. I thought…and now…and I feel like such a fool!”

  “You shouldn’t,” he said, his tone low and soft, the kind of voice I imagined when I thought about him late at night, the kind of voice that wanted nothing more than to wrap its warmth around me. “I would jump at the chance to be with you, but your first time should be special, with someone who can give you more than just one night.”

  “But one night is all I want.”

  “How do you know that? How do you know you won’t want more?”

  How did I know? And then I realized I already knew. I would want more. But if one night was all he was willing to give me, then maybe that was good enough. All I knew was that I wanted that one night to be with him and no one else.

  He pushed me back and pressed me up against the building we were standing in front of, his hand moving over my throat until he held it gently in his hand. His fingers urged my chin up and our eyes met, his warm and full of more affection than anyone had ever turned in my direction.

  “I want you,” he whispered, his words lost in the huskiness of need. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “It’s just one night,” I said.

  He studied my face for a long moment, and then his lips were pressed against mine and he was doing things I’d never known before. I didn’t even know how to kiss properly! But when I relaxed and let him do what he wanted, my toes curled in my shoes and my lungs seemed to seize up, capable of only taking miniscule breaths. I suddenly felt things in places I didn’t even know existed, a warmth spreading through my lower belly and a quiver beginning in my thighs. I tried to follow what he was doing, to repeat his movements the way he executed them, but then I was lost, and all I could do was welcome him and hope that was enough.

  This was going to be so much more than I expected. But I knew already that it would be an experience I would never regret.

  Chapter 17

  Kirkland

  It was almost impossible to keep my hands off of Mabel while we were alone in the apartment together. Earlier, I watched her move around the room and wanted to grab her hand, to pull her down on my lap and teach her so many things. The words she’d said to me, about how she didn’t even know what an orgasm felt like, kept ringing in my head. And now I had permission to touch her, but the damn cameras…. She was pacing the living room, talking on the phone with some real estate agent about the space she wanted to rent for the publishing house she was going to open under the umbrella of her company, every step causing her ass to move in this way that was just…damn, I don’t think I’ve ever had it quite this bad.

  I could remember going to the clubs a few times, how desperate I was to take some girl into the bathroom so I could have my way with her, but that was a long time ago. I’d thought I was just getting older, losing interest in the game. Apparently not.

  Later, camping out on the couch, aware that she was lying in a nice, big bed just a few feet away, was driving me insane. I finally had to get up and do a little pacing myself. I ended up doing some sit ups, too, hoping the exercise would make me tired enough to sleep. But nothing could get Mabel and the things she’d said to me off my mind. She wanted me, and…God, I wanted her. I hadn’t thought I wanted her that much, but now…what was going on in my head? Why was I suddenly obsessing over this petite, sexy, strangely dressed, beautiful woman?

  And now I was standing at the back of a strip club, watching Mabel blush each time a male stripper turned his attention on their table. It was happening a lot because someone had mentioned to the management that this was a bachelorette party. Alcohol flowed, but Mabel and Joss seemed to be the only one’s not imbibing.

  I wondered if David knew his bride-to-be was such a flirt? She was certainly using all her feminine wiles on these strippers! But Mabel wouldn’t even look at the strippers when they came to the table.

  “Need a drink, sweetheart?”

  A waitress wearing nothing but a skirt and a narrow, white apron approached me. I let my eyes move over the length of her, but the interest just wasn’t there.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Are you sure? Looks like it’s going to be a long night.”

  “I’m on the clock.”

  She nodded, looking over at Ricki and the others. “So, is one of them a celebrity or something?”

  “Nope. Just the CEO of a very big company.”

  “Which one?”

  “If I could tell you that, she probably wouldn’t need me to be standing here.”

  The woman stuck out her bottom lip in the semblance of a pout. “Not even a hint?”

  “Sorry, sweetheart.”

  She stuck her lip out a little further, then walked away, glancing over her shoulder at me as though she expected me to change my mind. I didn’t.

  I turned my attention back to the bachelorette party just in time to see Ricki slide a five-dollar bill into the front of a stripper’s G-string. The rest of the women laughed, the closest patting Ricki on the back. But not Joss. She was watching me. And Mabel. She was watching Joss.

  I found myself wondering what Christy Anne would think of such a thing. She’d always been up for a little fun, but I think she might have drawn the line at G-strings, but I could be wrong. She once told me that she snuck into a strip joint with a group of friends one Saturday night, but she chickened out before she actually saw anything.

  Christy Anne was that way. She was shy and demure, but she also had a wild streak that was pretty wide. We stole a car together once. She was so frightened when we broke in and hotwired it, but then she was screaming and singing along with the radio at the top of her lungs.

  A contradiction. That’s what Christy Anne was.

  Mabel was like her.


  Was that what drew me to Mabel? That she was a ball of contradictions like Christy Anne had always been? Or was it something else? Would I get over my obsession with her once I had her in bed? Or was this different?

  If Christy Anne were here, I would probably be obsessing over a very different kind of woman. But, again, if Christy Anne were here, my life would be much different than it was. I would probably be in jail, or playing sax in a bad jazz band just like my father had done most of his adult life.

  If Christy Anne were still around, I wouldn’t be here; I knew that for sure. And Christy Anne? She’d probably be sitting right there next to Ricki.

  It frightened me a little to think about it too much. I wasn’t the kind of guy who analyzed his feelings. They just were what they were, or I ignored them altogether. Emotions just got in the way, like trust was something lovers made up to torture each other with. There was no such thing as love, as trust, as monogamy. Sooner or later, everyone figured that out. I’d just done it sooner than anyone else had.

  Another stripper wandered over to the table, and Ricki stood, whispered in the guy’s ear and slipped him a folded bill. A second later, he walked over to Mabel and started twerking in her lap. Mabel was so beet red that I’m surprised not everyone at that table figured out how innocent she was. I started toward the table, but Joss leaned over and whispered something to stripper. He immediately moved back to Ricki, doing the same thing in her lap. The only difference was, she was more than pleased to have him there. She did everything but wrap her arms around him and bury her hands in his G-string.

  Mabel thanked Joss. They whispered to each other for a few minutes, and then Joss came over to where I was.

  “She’s sweet.”

  “She’s too innocent for this shit.”

  “She does seem a little innocent.”

  She climbed onto a stool that was standing beside me, sighing as she rested her hand on her belly.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing that.”

  “What?” she asked.

  I gestured to her belly. “Seems like copping out to me.”

  “This is definitely not copping out. This is the hardest job I’ve ever had.”

  “What happens when the kid’s born? You quitting?”