Chapter 2
Saturday evening, Kevin pulled into Nash’s driveway and parked his rental car. He needed to talk his buddy out of this irrational, cockamamie team building idea.
Camping.
He was actually sending them camping in some Wisconsin state forest nearly an hour north of Pulaski. Even though Kevin had never been camping, he didn’t mind giving it a try. It was who he had to camp with that made it intolerable.
It would be a week—a whole damned week—of wanting to strangle the uptight prima donna while simultaneously fighting the urge to kiss her until she moaned his name again. She definitely hadn’t been uptight that night.
The faint echo of her desire-husky voice made his dick twitch as he approached the front door. He gave a low growl of annoyance—and regret—and prayed to God the years he and Nash had been friends would count for something.
His wife opened the door, and Kevin gave Josie a quick hug after she invited him inside.
“Nash took Lincoln out back to play while I clean up after dinner. Did you eat? I can make you a plate if you’re hungry.”
He smiled as he followed her into the kitchen. “Thanks, but I had a burger at that bar called Rowdy’s. Bit of a misnomer if you ask me. Nothing but old couples, families with kids, and me.”
“You were there early,” she said with a grin. “They liven up later with the karaoke crowd.”
“How many beers you gotta have to endure that?”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve heard it,” she chastised. “We have some good singers around the area, including an award-winning song writer from Redemption, a couple towns over. And Santa Butch does a decent cover of Johnny Cash.”
Kevin narrowed his gaze at that name. Butch, not Johnny Cash. He’d met the old guy once. Still thought it was weird the whole town called him Santa behind his back. Weirder still was the old man giving unsolicited advice on sending him and Shanna on this stupid team building trip. He didn’t even know them.
“I got Nash up there once.”
Josie’s words captured his attention once more. He glanced outside to see his friend sprawled out on a blanket with their six-month-old son. “Tell me you recorded that.”
She laughed while opening the fridge to put away containers of leftovers. “I did, but he threatened divorce if I ever showed anyone.”
“Aw, come on. You know he’d never do that, whereas I would pay good money to see that video. Name the charity.”
“Hmmm…now that I might have to consider. Want one?” She lifted up a bottle of beer and then shut the door when he nodded.
He accepted the drink on their way out to the backyard. “Thanks.”
Nash sat up as they approached, and Kevin read the silent warning in his eyes. Yeah, his friend and boss could likely guess the reason he’d shown up. He wasn’t going to heed said warning, but he’d bide his time before broaching the subject.
Before begging, you mean.
He squatted down for the obligatory small talk while the baby played with toys on the blanket. Between swallows of beer, his tension eased as he watched his friend play peek-a-boo with the boy and give him belly raspberries without an ounce of self-consciousness.
The sight triggered a pang in his chest. It wasn’t unexpected. He did want a family someday—sooner rather than later. He just had to find the right woman first.
A vision of Shanna’s whiskey-brown eyes smiling up at him as she held a baby in her arms flashed in his mind.
Oh, hell no.
The key word in the prior thought was the right woman. Control freak Shanna Rogers was light years away from that designation.
And yet, the image reappeared and refused to fade.
Shit. He reached up to run a hand through his hair and rose to his feet to chug the last few swallows of his beer. Josie and Nash both glanced up at his restless movements.
“Time for a bath, and then bed,” Josie declared as she scooped Lincoln into her arms. “That’ll give you guys a chance to chat.”
The moment she disappeared inside, his buddy asked, “You get all your gear today?”
Kevin had received an email with a list of half the items needed for the next week, while Shanna had been sent the other half. Meaning they would have to share. He tapped the empty beer bottle against the side of his leg. “No. You can’t really be serious about this.”
Nash bent to gather up the toys in the blanket before starting toward the house. “I’m dead serious.”
“Come on. Camping? Shanna’s not going to last a day in a tent, let alone a week.”
“That’s what the team building is about. Help each other. Make it work.”
“I’ll do all the work while she sits there afraid to break a nail or get her clothes dirty.”
“Don’t underestimate her.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not.”
An unsympathetic shrug lifted Nash’s shoulder. “You two need to figure out how to deal with whatever this animosity is between you. You’re professional adults who should be able to work together in a civilized manner.”
“You don’t understand. That’s pretty much impossible at this point.”
His friend plunked the blanket on the patio table and turned so they faced each other across the table. “Why are you so sure if you haven’t even tried?”
Kevin shifted his stance and winced. “We…slept together.”
Nash shook his head with a should’ve known grimace. “So, that’s what this is all about. When did this happen? When you first met, or more recently?”
“Uh…’bout a month ago.”
Not that he hadn’t noticed her back when they first met. She was younger than him by two years, held a lower position in the company, had less experience than him, and yet something about the woman had intimidated the hell out of him from day one. He’d gone on the defense and discovered rather quickly she had an uppity attitude to match her smart, sophisticated, ice princess exterior.
His friend’s eyebrows reversed direction. “Obviously things didn’t turn out well.”
Oh, the together part had gone extremely well—it was the after that tanked.
“It was awful the next morning, so I left. Ever since then, she’s been worse than ever.”
“What do you mean, you left?”
“I left and went home.” When Nash gave him a look of disbelief, he lifted his palms up with annoyance. “What was I supposed to do? Stay and start planning a wedding?”
“Of course not, dumbass, but most people get that you don’t run out first thing in the morning.”
“If I’d stayed any longer, she probably would’ve started throwing things at my head.”
“So she was pissed off?”
“That’s an understatement. Picture the worst you’ve seen us at the office and double it.”
“Why?”
Kevin frowned as he gripped the chair in front of him. “What do you mean, why? How the hell should I know?”
“You’re the one who slept with her. Did you say or do something to set her off?”
“No,” he denied, offended that’s the first assumption his friend made. “She’s just an uptight control freak. It was obvious she didn’t want me there, so I got the hell out.”
Nash gave a heavy sigh as he dropped down in one of the patio chairs. “How in the world did you get together in the first place?”
“We had a client dinner.” Kevin pulled out a chair opposite to sit as well. “Things went well, and after we secured the new account, I tossed out an invite for her to stay for a celebratory drink. It shocked the hell out of me when she said yes.”
Shocked the hell out of him he’d even asked, but looking back, the invite had been sparked by a heightened sense of awareness from the second she entered the restaurant. Instead of her trademark, flawless cascade of straight, blond hair past her shoulders, she’d twisted surprisingly wavy strands into an understated, sexy bun at the nape of her neck with a few loose strands framing her face. A flowing, wine-red summer dress was decidedly more feminine than the cool, business suits and dresses she favored, and her smile had flashed in his direction without the usual frosty edge.
For years, he’d endured an electric current of attraction when near her, but that night, he’d seen a side of her he wouldn’t have believed existed. She’d been softer. Warm even. The ice princess thawed as she let down her guard and actually talked to him like a real person instead of an adversary. They’d laughed and joked through one drink and then another, and later, they’d even danced to a couple of songs they both liked.
He might have fallen a bit in love with Fun Shanna that evening, only to have the next morning and the past month turn into pure hell with Prima Donna Shanna. Physically, he wanted her more than ever, but the walls between them now sported hazardous razor wire that cut both ways on a daily basis.
“Aw man.” Nash sat forward in his chair. “Tell me this wasn’t a drunk hook-up?”
“No. Of course not. We had a couple drinks, that’s all.”
His friend looked doubtful, and Kevin frowned. He had been slightly buzzed during the cab ride to her place, but that vanished the second her lips met his.
Sickening dread sank his stomach. Had she been drunk, and he hadn’t realized it?
He ran a quick replay of the night in his head, searching for clues.
Desire simmered in his veins as the combination of the sultry sway of her body and her intoxicating, vanilla scent threatened to seduce all reason from his mind. While they danced, herculean effort kept his hands at the small of her back instead of slipping down to grip her shapely ass so he could pull her tight against his arousal.
As the slow song came to an end, he managed to step back from temptation and suggest they call it a night before one of them did something both of them would regret.
Outside, he offered a hand to help her into the back of the cab they’d agreed to share, but then she didn’t pull away, even after he slid in beside her. Common sense and good intentions decided to walk home while he and Shanna took the faster ride to her place in the close confines of the back seat.
With her soft hand in his and her scent still tantalizing his senses, electrifying tingles spread up his arm and coalesced into an urgent throb in his groin. Sexual tension weighted the air with expectation, fueled by the heat of her thigh against his. One glance at her face and he was completely mesmerized by her languid brown gaze in the indirect light from the city lights outside the windows.
Her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, and he bit back a groan as he focused on her mouth. A memory flickered in the background, sparking a smile as he murmured, “Hell must’ve frozen over.”
“Must have.”
The husky laugh that accompanied her response told him she also recalled their heated exchange the previous summer about hell freezing over before he’d ever consider kissing her. Foreplay. Years of foreplay had led to this moment, when he lifted his gaze back to hers and the blatant invitation in her eyes made his heart slam against his ribs. She flattened her palm against his chest, inducing another thud that echoed in his ears.
Cupping the side of her face, he slid his hand back to thread his fingers into the glorious waves of silky, golden hair she’d shaken free on the dance floor. “This is crazy, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she confirmed without hesitation.
“I still want to.”
She smiled and tilted her face up to his, her eyelids heavy with unconcealed desire.
“I need you to say you want this, too,” he urged.
“I want this, too.”
His heart hammered as he whispered, “You’re sure?”
Her nod had been all the go-ahead he’d needed without giving it another thought—until now. However, he honestly didn’t think she’d been drunk. Maybe buzzed like him, but certainly not drunk by the time they tumbled into her bed. And definitely not by the time she cried out his name as her second orgasm triggered his own climax deep inside her heat.
Kevin swallowed hard as he pushed the memories away.
“Have you two talked at all since then?”
Nash’s question jolted him back to the conversation.
“I tried to bring it up once, but she shut me down. Said she doesn’t rehash mistakes she doesn’t intend to repeat.”
“Ouch.”
He shrugged off the renewed resentment the memory stirred. “Feeling’s mutual. Which is why this camping trip is going to be a disaster.”
Nash gave him a grimace of semi-apology, as if he wished there were something he could do about the upcoming week. “Sounds more like the perfect opportunity for you two to clear the air. Like adults.”
Not an apology then. More like, Shut up and man up.
Clearly, his friend had no more sympathy for him than his boss.