Obsession (Southern Comfort) (5 page)

“So,” Kathleen said when Josh had left.  “Read any good books lately?”

“You really are a smartass, you know.”

“I’ve never understood that.”  Kathleen shook her hair back
, those coppery strands sliding against the long stem of her neck, the nearby tree lights teasing out the red and gold until it all blended together like flame.  Her blue eyes sparkled, her skin gleamed creamy and fair against the dark sweater that hugged her gentle curves.  There were buttons on her right shoulder.  One, two, three…

“Understood what?”

“Why, when someone is running their mouth, do people call them a smart
ass?”

Justin wondered if they’d simply pop open if he slid his finger along her collarbone.  “Because there’s no curse word for
mouth. 
You can call someone a smart mouth, but it just doesn’t have the same, slightly offensive connotation.  If you want to accurately convey your annoyance, you have to swear
.
”

“Smart bitch?”

“Not a body part.”

He watched her pop a candy coated pretzel in her mouth as she considered.  She was wearing lip gloss tonight.  When the light hit it just right, it sparkled.  “Well, we know we can’t say smart dick, because it’s not really a curse word, and it’s also an oxymoron.”

“I would argue, but the poor decision making skills of the penis are universally acknowledged.  It does, however, invoke wonder and awe in other arenas.”

Kathleen stopped chewing.  “Are these arenas on the planet Wishful Thinking?  Because I’m thinking it’s more indifference and irritation.”

Justin opened his mouth.  Closed it.  No good could come of offering to show her where she’d gone wrong in her thinking.

“See?” She poked him in the chest, the corner of her mouth quirking into a smile.  It looked like candy, that damn lip gloss.  Like a Charms lollipop.  The kind that was sour at first, and got sweeter as you licked it. “As soon as we start talking about the penis, you lose the ability for coherent speech.  Really, the next time I have to subdue a male suspect, I’ll just drop that word, like an anatomical bomb.   Should wrap things up pretty quick
ly.  Damn, I’m almost out of Chex mix.”  She looked mournfully into her cup.  “I’ll just –”

He didn’t think.  If he had, he never would have done it.

Justin reached out, slid his fingers into her lovely hair – really, it was like his arm moved independently of his body, like he had no control whatsoever – lowered his mouth.

A
nd tasted.

KATHLEEN
froze.

Justin was kissing her
. His lips were soft, his breath spicy like the nutmeg on the eggnog.  His long fingers cradled the back of her head and his mouth moved warm against hers.  She made a sound, surprise or… yeah, that was surprise, and her lips parted as her eyelids fluttered.  He changed the angle, just a small shift so that their parted lips molded, and her hand drifted up to his chest. 

To push him away?  But when he breathed into her mouth her fingers clutched at his sweater.  She had no idea what had gotten into him, kissing her was a very un-Justin-like thing to do, but since he apparently did it really damn well, who was she to object? Besides, all his heat was really confusing the issue, and she stepped closer, because he felt so good.  Big and broad, and when he parted her lips again with his tongue, slid inside to taste and tangle, the hottest place she’d ever been.  She went dizzy, and something fell – the last of her Chex mix, maybe, spilling onto the scarred wood floor – and then it was just Justin, filling her mouth, taking over her mind.  The kiss spun out, days, she was kissing him for days, all hot lips and teasing tongue and the faintest scratch of whiskers.  He’d showered but he hadn’t shaved.  Strange that the combination was suddenly sexy.  With her sensitive redhead’s skin, she usually preferred men who spent regular time with their razors. When he pulled it back she made another sound – distress, that was definitely distress
this time – but he simply shifted to bring their bodies flush together.  Then his tongue was back, and her arm was squished between them in the sling, but his hand was on her hip, so she didn’t care.  His fingers tightened over her jeans and Kathleen thought
clothes are so overrated
just as someone said
“Whoa”
behind them.  Sadie, she thought that might be Sadie’s voice, but who needed Sadie when she had Justin right here. 

Go away,
she thought, and slid her fingers around the back of his neck, pulling him closer, taking a little nip of his bottom lip with her teeth.  She got lost for a moment, lost in all the heat and the lovely hard press of his body.  Hard, Justin was hard –
maybe wonder and awe, after all –
but her brother’s voice said “Maybe not so Hopeless.”

Justin lifted his head, looking dazed and gorgeous.  He’d always been gorgeous, it was just an anatomical fact, but she’d never quite registered that he was
gorgeous
before, in the hormonal meltdown sense.  Wanting more, Kathleen started to go after him but he blinked and glanced around.  “I…”  His gaze slid back to her mouth, then darted to her eyes.  He took a step back, and she felt cold all over.  “I’m sorry.  That was…”

Amazing,
Kathleen wanted to say.

“Out of line.  It
’s just that your mouth was so…”  He scrubbed a hand over his head before he shook it.  “It’s the mistletoe.  Or maybe your lip gloss.  And I’m going to shut up now, and just say that I’m sorry.”

When he hurried away, cutting through the waves of partygoers like a steamship – the SS Delicious, perhaps – Kathleen stood, Chex mix scattered at her feet and her preconceptions blown to hell.  She turned, feeling stunned, and saw Sadie beaming and Declan looking
bored.  “This is what I was missing?”

“Only for the past three years,” Declan said.

“Well… God.”  She looked over the crowd, saw Justin pushing out the front door.

And wanted to miss it again, real soon.

CHAPTER FOUR

JUSTIN
lay in the dark, reliving that kiss. 

And then kicking himself for reliving it.  Followed by kicking himself for kissing her in the first place.  Or maybe enjoying the fact that he’d kissed her, and then kicking himself for… hell, he didn’t know.  Maybe it was kicking himself he enjoyed.

Who was he kidding?  He’d been thrilled with that kiss.  Ecstatic about that kiss.  And had spent the past week and a half reliving it in vivid Technicolor with surround sound empowered by Dolby – thinking about her moaning against his mouth still made him shiver – and if he was kicking himself at all it was only because he’d basically flushed three years of self-restraint down the drain. 

For a few, glorious, minutes.

“What are you doing?”

The overhead light flicked on, and Justin squinted at the blurred features of his younger brother.  “This is a little thing I like to call sleeping.”

“You’re on the sofa.  In your underwear.  And your face looks… weird.”

“You should talk, since yours looks just like it.”  He sat up and scrubbed a hand over the face in question, his palm rasping against a day’s worth of stubble.  Two days?  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d shaved.  He’d been working like the indentured.  “And the
sofa was closer than the bed.”

“Well the game’s about to start.”  James shoved at Justin’s bare legs, making them slide across the leather, plopping down with bottle in h
and.

“Is that
beer?” He peered at the label.

“I’m over twenty-one.”

“Hell, when did that happen?”

“About four years ago.  Probably arou
nd the last time you showered.”

Justin stared at his baby brother. 
“Why
are you here again?”

James clicked the remote, satisfaction running over his face as fifty-two inches of high definition kicked in.  He sipped his beer, propping his enormous, sock-clad feet on Justin’s table.  “Christmas break. Final semester of law school. Stress.  Your house is the only one without r
ugrats.”

Justin currently felt annoyed with his three older brothers for their tendency to reproduce.  “You could have spent the rest of the week with Mom and Dad.  Or, you know,
gone back to your own apartment.
”

“Yeah, right.
Dad would have talked about patent law and mom would have talked about
nice young women.
Like I have any interest in either of those. And my apartment is a shoebox filled with dirty socks.”

Justin dubiously eye
d the socks touching his table.

“What?”  James lifted a foot.  “They’re clean
.”

“I know.  They’re
mine.”

“Hey, something came for you.”  Clearly anxious to change the topic, his brother gestured with his bottle.  “I p
ut it on the kitchen table.”  

Too tired to be appropriately annoyed, Justin stretched before heading toward the kitchen.  He spared a glance for the cardboard box sitting on the table, much more interested in the contents of his coffee pot.  The final drops were just falling into the carafe.  James might be a pain in the ass, but he was a considerate pain in the ass.  And he made damn good coffee.  After filling a cup and taking that first, bracing sip, Justin wiped a little spillage off the black granite counter.  He’d
finished the final installation with James’s help, after living with plywood over his cabinets for a year.  Having belonged to an elderly woman, the house had been an overly feminine, out of date dump when he’d bought it, but he was slowly fixing it up.  It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t fancy. But it was close to the beach, and the foundation was good.  He could work with that.  He liked repairing stuff that was battered and broken, giving it new life.

Good thing, he thought
wryly, considering his day job.

Slightly more focused after his cup was half-drained, Justin topped it off and turned his attention to the box.  There was a little heart drawn where the return address should be. Probably some kind of care
package from his mother.  Leftover Christmas cookies, maybe, even though she’d already loaded him up last week.  But with James temporarily bunking with him, it had to be nearly impossible for her to resist feathering the nest a little.

He dragged it across the pine tabletop with his fingers, then sliced the clear packing tape with a knife.  Inside was another box, wrapped in shiny red paper.  A fat white bow with pink and red hearts printed on it squatted in the center.  Justin’s eyebrows drew together.  A little early for her to be sending Valentine’s gifts.  Maybe she’d run
out of Christmas wrapping.  Or…

Dismissing that as a waste of brainpower, he pried the tape up and laid the paper aside.  Nestled inside this box, in a bed of silvery tissue, was what appeared to be Mickey Mouse.  And Minnie, he corrected, fingering another layer of tissue aside.  Caught up in an embrace.  When he lifted the figurine out – it appeared to be some kind of tree ornament – he saw the words on the banner which stretched aro
und their feet.

Our First Christmas Together.

Okay. 

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Taking another sip of coffee, he looked in the box for a card or some kind of note.  When none appeared he snagged the ornament by the little fabric loop it hung from, and walked toward the living room doorway.

“Was mom doing
drugs when you left Savannah?”

“What?”  James pulled his atte
ntion from the TV with a frown.

“She sent me an
our first Christmas
ornament.”  Justin held it aloft.  “Unless this is some kind of suggestion that she’d like me to take you in permanently, I wouldn’t eat any more of those brownies she made.  She must be lacing them.”

Justin tossed the ornament through the air, and James fielded it like the veteran ballp
layer he was.  “Mickey Mouse?”

“I would call you Minnie, but that’s just wrong on so many levels.”

James shook his dark head, and sat the ornament next to his feet.  “Why would she mail it, anyway?  She just saw you last week.  Wait.  Was that what was in the box?”

“Yep.”

“Mom didn’t send that. It… aw, what was
that?
”  James thrust his beer toward the TV.  “If that ball was any deader there’d be an obituary.  That guy was out of bounds
.
”

Justin thought of the kid whose football career he hadn’t been able to save, and turned away from the scr
een.  “Why would you say that?”

“Because his foot was –”

“About
Mom,”
Justin clarified.  “How do you know she didn’t send it?”

“The box had a Charleston postmark.  Between that and the cutesy little heart graffiti, I figured it was from one of your women.  Oh.”  More interested now, James turned suspicious gray eyes on Justin.  “You’re not getting
married or something, are you?”