No Laughing Matter: Lennox Brothers Romantic Comedy Read online

  She batted her eyelids. “I’ll have you know, sir, there’s more to me than just a pretty face,” she drawled. “I can screw real good.”

  I grinned, offering her my arm to escort her out. “Then you deserve all the ice cream you can eat.”

  “You want to go to Lick It Like That?”

  “Where else?”

  The ice-cream parlor by the beach was only a short drive away. We used to go there when we were kids, and it turned out to have barely changed. The old jukebox was still in the corner, playing one of the songs I remembered from years ago. And the flavors were exactly the same.

  “Strawberry swirl for me,” I told the server. “And peanut butter?” I turned to Carlotta. “Is that still your favorite?”

  Her smile was beautiful. “You remembered.”

  By unspoken agreement, Carlotta and I took our cones to the same corner booth we used to sit at, settling into our old seats opposite one another. Next to us was a table of four teenagers, about the same age as we were when we used to come here. Two girls and two guys, eating ice cream and laughing at something on one of their phones. Being here with Carlotta made me feel their age again. Like we’d stepped back in time and should be talking about things that happened at school.

  Carlotta tasted her peanut butter cone and groaned. “This is just as delicious as I remembered.” She licked ice cream off her lips, and I couldn’t help but follow the movement of her tongue with my eyes. As good as my ice cream was, she looked a whole lot tastier.

  “Do you feel like we’re in a time warp?” she asked.

  “It’s exactly what I was thinking.” I ran my hand over my jaw, rasping my palm against my stubble. “Tell me the truth, do I look sixteen?”

  “Not a day over.”

  “Then do you want to make out later? I’m angling for second base.”

  Her eyes smiled even more than her lips did. “If you give me your homework to copy, I’ll let you get to third.”

  Leaning across the table, I brought my mouth close to her ear. “It’s a deal, sweetheart.” I let my breath tickle her lobe.

  She shivered, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they were dark and her eyelids were heavy. My own relentless desire for her was mirrored back at me, and it was all I could do not to touch her.

  Then her tongue flicked out and licked my ice cream. Watching her made me picture all the other things I wanted her to lick. Well, there was mainly one thing I wanted her to lick. The others were optional extras.

  “Nice,” she said. “But mine is better.” She licked her cone again as though to confirm it.

  “My turn to taste,” I said.

  Ignoring the ice cream she held out, I cupped her chin with my hand and tasted her mouth. Her lips were cold, sweet, and delicious. She always tasted good, but this time I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to kiss her forever.

  “Eww. Get a room.”

  I pulled away from Carlotta, flashing a grin at the teenagers at the next table.

  “Old people kissing.” The girl who’d spoken pulled a disgusted face. “Sick.”

  Carlotta laughed. “I guess we’re not sixteen anymore.”

  “We’re not old,” I protested, but the teens had already gone back to their phones.

  “We should give them something to complain about.” Carlotta’s eyes sparkled. “I said I’d let you get to third. I say we do it on their table.”

  I grinned at her mischievous smile. “You’re not joking, are you? If you can’t be trusted around impressionable young minds, we’d better take our cones outside.”

  We walked hand-in-hand down to the beach. The sky had turned shades of dark pink and blue, and the temperature was cooling down fast, but when I took off my shoes the sand still felt warm. The beach was quiet with only a few people walking and jogging along the tide line, and we chose a spot on the sand where we could watch the waves. There was nothing quite like sitting on San Dante’s gorgeous beach. I’d miss it once I was gone.

  “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” Carlotta said what I was thinking. Her ice cream was in one hand, and she juggled her phone out of her pocket with the other. “I’ll take a photo of us.”

  “To post online? No thanks.”

  “You’d mind?”

  “Would I mind a million people commenting on my picture?” I gave my head a firm shake. “Never going to happen.” It’d be bad enough for anyone, but a potential disaster for a special agent about to go back undercover.

  “Then I won’t put it online. It’ll just be for us.”

  “I don’t like having my picture taken.”

  “Watch this.” She smeared her ice cream onto her cheek.

  “What the—?”

  “Done.” Pulling her cone off her cheek, she grinned at me with a face covered with ice cream. “Look at the picture.”

  She handed me her phone. The photo she’d taken filled the screen. My face was turned toward Carlotta, my expression comically puzzled. Carlotta had her cone stuck to her cheek, her eyes wide and her mouth open with mock surprise. As though something had jogged her elbow and made her accidentally face plant her ice cream.

  “It’s a funny picture,” I admitted. “But you’re mocking yourself again.”

  She poked her tongue out to lick ice cream off her cheek. “Normal selfies are boring. I like taking funny shots that tell a little story.”

  I leaned forward to kiss off the ice cream that was still under her eye. “You’re so beautiful, a regular picture of you could never be boring. You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Catching her chin, I held her still while I kissed the stickiness away. “And as delicious as this is, I like your face even better without ice cream on it.”

  Carlotta pulled back, her brow furrowed. “You need to stop with the compliments. I can feel a blush coming on.”

  “Blushing doesn’t matter, because you have more than one superpower. You proved that in the theater.”

  Her frown disappeared. “The kids were great, weren’t they? I was proud of them.”

  “Are you doing theater in LA?”

  “A little acting. But today was the first time I’ve ever been a director.” Her eyes had turned luminous, reflecting the pink hues of the sunset. “I had no idea how satisfying it would be. I was trying not to overstep, but being able to make the entire cast do the songs the way I wanted? Ah-maz-ing.”

  “Maybe you can do some directing when you get back to LA.”

  She scrunched her nose. “That would be my dream job, but I seriously doubt I could get my foot in the door. You can’t walk a block in LA without tripping over at least three directors. Judy only let me take over today’s session as a favor.”

  “Speaking of LA, when are you going back?”

  She shrugged. “Being in San Dante isn’t as bad as I thought. Weirdly, things with Mom have improved a little since I found out about her big lie.” Her smile hitched up on one side, and my eyes dropped to trace the curve of her lips. “Also, some other good things have happened,” she added.

  “Like what?”

  “Like this.” She leaned over and kissed me until I felt something sticky and cold running down my hand and had to pull away to lick up dripping ice cream.

  Not that I minded. If there was anything nicer than sitting on the beach at sunset, tasting strawberry swirl and Carlotta’s lips, I couldn’t imagine it. Her toenails were painted gold and her sandals lay next to my sneakers in the sand. Her bare arm was against mine, and she smelled like peanut butter ice cream, but with an extra hint of sweetness that was all her.

  I’d wanted the perfect memory to carry with me to Houston, so I could call on it when things got dark. And this was it. My perfect moment. Ice cream dripping on my hand while my heart warmed as though the sun were setting into my chest instead of behind the horizon.

  “How did you get that scar?” She reached up and traced the twisted line on my neck where a bullet had burned through my flesh.

  My lazy, con
tented thoughts abruptly focused. “Car accident,” I lied.

  “And the ones on your arm and stomach?”

  She must have seen or felt the scar on my stomach when we were fooling around at her mother’s house. “Same accident.” The lies extinguished the warmth from my chest. “It was a bad one.”

  “Were you doing bodyguard work? Someone was shooting at you and blew the tires out, made the car roll?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “What do you do when you guard people? Is it like the secret service in the movies? Do you wear a little earphone in your ear? Do you order your team to patrol the perimeter?”

  “Sometimes.”

  She grinned. “I knew it! You’re guarding someone famous, and that’s why you’re so tight-lipped. Is it Oprah?”

  “No.”

  “Beyoncé?”

  “No.”

  “A Kardashian?”

  “Quit trying to guess.” I dragged in a breath, feeling like shit and needing to admit the truth. “All I can say is that my job’s important to me. But it’s not easy. I travel a lot and work difficult hours. And when I’m at work, it’s like I’m someone else.” It was more than I’d meant to say and I looked away, staring out to sea, trying to break the spell she was casting over me.

  Even if I were falling for Carlotta all over again, my job had to come first. Maybe I was only doing it because I was still trying to make up for the past, but it didn’t change the fact that I was the only one with a chance of bringing down Diamond, one of the worst scumbags to ever rise to the top of the cartel pecking order.

  It wasn’t fair to lie to Carlotta. And the more time I spent with her, the more I hated the thought of going back to Houston. But what choice did I have?

  Chapter Twenty

  Carlotta

  ‘Does masturbating too much make you go blind?’

  Though I was sure I’d heard that somewhere, when I’d typed it into Google, the search came up with conflicting results.

  The fact I could read the search results without squinting probably proved it was an old wives’ tale. But Google did provide a helpful warning about the possibility of getting a repetitive strain injury in my wrist.

  If my wrist needed surgery, I’d send Mason the bill. It was his fault I needed to spend so much solo time in the bedroom. When we kissed, I knew he wanted more, I could feel the evidence of it. But I could also feel him holding back.

  Last night, he’d told me again how much more important his job was to him than any relationship could be, then barely kissed me again before dropping me at home.

  Maybe that was a good thing. I liked being around him too much. In fact, I was in serious danger of falling for him.

  It shouldn’t be happening, but he’d disarmed me with compliments, then charmed me with his unexpected, playful smile. I loved that he always laughed at my jokes, and how he could crack me up with his quick wit. That he was so big and tough, but a softie underneath. And how he needed to take care of people, which was incredibly sweet.

  And as for how his beautiful blue-gray eyes heated up as though he were undressing me in his mind? Holy. Flaming. Fire-panties.

  But falling for him would be a terrible idea.

  The last thing I needed was a man I couldn’t trust. And after always ranking in second place to Mom’s fantasies, I wanted someone who’d value me more than his job.

  None of which helped with the intense level of sexual frustration I was suffering.

  At least working for Santino provided some distraction. I did some more filing, picked up more cartons, and listened to far more details about Faith’s love life than I’d ever wanted to know.

  But my thoughts kept inexorably drifting to Mason, and the minute I got home from work, I retired to my bedroom to double-click my own mouse. Again.

  Opening my eyes afterward, my gaze went to my Meg Ryan poster. “Don’t look at me like that,” I scolded her. “You did it first, remember?”

  “Are you in there, Carlotta?” Mom had to be standing just outside my bedroom door, because the volume of her voice made me jump. Had she heard my explosive orgasm?

  “I didn’t know you were home from school, Mom.”

  There was a short silence as though my mother wasn’t sure what to say, even though I couldn’t recall that ever happening. “We’ll talk when you’re up,” she said finally.

  When I emerged, blinking, into the late afternoon light, Mom was in the kitchen slicing cheese and a tomato for a sandwich. She was wearing navy slacks and a pale green shirt, and I did a double take when I saw how subdued she looked.

  “Did you have a job interview?” I asked. “Or are you meeting with your parole officer?”

  “Very funny.” She looked down at her clothes. “This outfit matches my mood.”

  “Why? Did something happen?”

  She put down the knife. “I called Declan and told him about the affair.”

  “You did? How did he take it?”

  She sighed. “As well as could be expected.”

  “Poor Declan isn’t having a good week.” I gave Mom a sympathetic look, realizing her week hadn’t been much better. “What made you decide to call him?”

  “I was thinking about what you said. How I wasn’t a very good mother.”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t—”

  “But maybe it isn’t too late to improve.”

  “Of course it isn’t.” I put my hand on her arm and squeezed. Okay, so I was a pushover. But when my mother was vulnerable and honest, my heart ached in the best possible way. For years, it was all I’d wished for.

  “Things will be different, Carlotta. You’ll see.”

  Maybe I was pushing my luck, but I had to ask. “Does this mean you’ll smooth things over with Ed Lennox?”

  She pulled away. “Never.”

  “But—”

  “That man’s a menace. Look. I found this stuck to the back of my car.” Ripping open the kitchen junk drawer, she pulled out a strip of paper. No, not paper. It was a bumper sticker.

  Warning: Driver Has Narcolepsy. Please Help By Honking.

  I snorted a laugh but somehow managed to turn it into a cough.

  “All those people honking behind me, and I had no idea why.” She shoved the sticker back into the drawer and slammed it shut. “And Edward signed me up to the Flat Earth Society. Their magazines were being delivered to me at school, and the science teacher asked if I’d like to see his globe.”

  “The Flat Earth Society? That must have pushed you over the edge.” I made myself keep a straight face.

  “When I was away on a school trip, Edward filled my mailbox with seeds and watered them until hundreds of little plants sprouted.”

  I stared down as though my shoes were fascinating, but really I was taking deep breaths through my nose. When I could speak without cracking up, I asked, “Did the mailman start leaving you lettuce?”

  “Carlotta, it was anything but funny.”

  “I know, Mom. But it’s important to romaine calm and keep the peas.”

  “Carlotta Watson!”

  My laugh burst out of me. “But Mom, you’ve pranked Edward too.”

  “I was provoked!”

  “Please end your feud. It would mean a lot to me.”

  “The man’s a monster. You can’t make peace with dragons, Carlotta. You have to slay them.” Picked up the knife, she stabbed it into the center of the tomato she’d been slicing.

  I winced. “Just think about burying the hatchet instead of a dagger, okay? For me?”

  Her brow wrinkled and her mouth pulled down into a pained expression. “I’ll consider it. No promises.”

  My phone rang from the bedroom where I’d left it on the bed, and my heart leaped. I raced to answer it, but was disappointed when I saw Santino’s name on the screen instead of Mason’s.

  “Hi,” said Santino. “How was your first week of work?”

  “Great. Hey, I don’t think I thanked you enough for giving me a
job. It’s been a lifesaver.” Faith had paid me for the week in cash, and it had been enough to cover my utility bills for my LA apartment. “You’re not calling to fire me or anything?” I added, suddenly worried.

  “Actually, it’s the opposite. I know it’s Saturday tomorrow, but do you think you could do a special job for me anyway? My cousin has an auto paint shop in Tijuana, and he’s just finished spraying a metallic coating on my car. I need it picked up and I’d usually ask Faith, but she’s out of action until she gets her cast off.”

  “You want me to go to Mexico and drive your car back here?”

  “The bus will drop you a block from his shop and the whole trip should take four or five hours, tops.”

  I hesitated, the thought flashing back through my mind that he could be running some kind of illegal operation. But that idea had Mom’s vivid imagination stamped all over it. I’d asked her to stick to reality, so I should do the same.

  “I’ll pay you a bonus for your trouble,” he added. “And for working on a Saturday. An extra two hundred dollars on top of your normal hourly rate.”

  I blinked, calculating what I’d earn. “That’s generous.”

  “I want my car back in time for a hot date on Sunday.”

  “Then it looks like I’m going on a road trip.”

  He gave me the details, and when I hung up I went out to the living room to find Mom had disappeared. She must have eaten her sandwich and taken Xul for a walk.

  My gaze went to the ladder Mason had left behind. It was still sitting in the corner of the room with his toolbox, waiting for him to come and pick it up.

  Mom had no shortage of small maintenance jobs that needed doing, and it’d be a shame to waste the chance while I had the tools on hand. Strapping Mason’s enormous tool belt around my hips, I tightened it as much as I could, then stuck his big drill into it before climbing the ladder. I’d start by refastening the loose curtain rail.

  Being at the top of the ladder felt further from the ground than it had looked. I pulled Mason’s heavy drill out of the tool belt, but as I was trying to drill a new hole to fasten the rail, the too-large tool belt slipped off my hips. Grabbing for the belt with one hand, the drill slipped out of my other hand. I lunged for it, and the ladder tipped.