Skin Deep

“Then what is the word you’d use?”

Siren? Luscious? Hot? “Different,” he said.

The cat lifted his head from his position on the television. Michael was sure that if Mr. Tibbs had been able to roll his eyes at him, he would have. He glared at the tom, and gestured vaguely toward Kyra.

“Is there any particular reason for your…this…”

“Transformation?”

He hiked his brows. Transformation? As in a permanent way of living? As in out with the old, in with the new?

As in there was no way in hell he was going to survive with her looking like that twenty-four/seven?

He gave a deep, loud mental groan. He couldn’t handle two minutes with Kyra looking like that. How was he going to endure an entire friendship? “Um, that’ll do.”

She plucked up the clothing he’d dropped earlier, then swaggered toward the kitchen. Her gait was unsure, gutsy, making her look that much sexier. She opened the chrome garbage can and dropped the items inside, brushing her hands together as the lid closed.

She looked at him and he felt the urge to look away, as if merely meeting her eyes would reveal his true feelings.

“Does there have to be a reason? I mean, aside from my being long overdue for a reality check?” She twisted her lips. “I’ve lived twenty-four years looking like an old maid. It’s about time I looked more like the women my age.”

No woman your age looks like this, he wanted to tell her. But the words never made it past his lips. Sure, other women might dress that way, but not one of them could pull off the look the way Kyra did with so little or no effort. There was a quirky innocence, a playful charm, that made Kyra even sexier and impossible not to notice—as certain parts of his body could attest to. A curious naiveté and irresistible daring that made her look like one-third dressed-up teen, two-thirds single, professional female on the make.

Michael wanted to bang his hand against his head until it started working again. Until he stopped drooling after his best friend and started thinking with the parts of his body that mattered. Until he stopped wanting to throw her onto the couch behind him and explore those succulent breasts and plunge into her sweet-smelling flesh, those high heels piercing the air behind his back.

Instead he tugged on his shirt collar until he choked himself.

“Are you ready?” She struck a pose that was one-hundred-percent challenge. “It’s time to go out to let the world know the new Kyra has arrived.”

3

KYRA ACCIDENTALLY DROPPED the tiny beaded handbag the shop girl had assured her went with her outfit. Which wasn’t all that difficult considering that the purse looked as though it had been designed for a Barbie doll rather than a grown woman. But it was cute and so unlike anything she would normally buy for herself that she’d decided to go for it. And she now stood staring at where it lay on the sidewalk, wondering how she was going to pick it up.

She started to bend.

“Ah…I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Michael rumbled from behind her.

The sidewalk outside Lolita’s was hot enough to steam rice on. Kyra could feel the heat shimmer up the parts of her legs not covered by her stockings. It filled her with a sense of anticipation that hardened her nipples. At least, that’s what she told herself. That Michael’s distracted behavior since she’d emerged from the bathroom might have anything to do with her feelings was too complicated to consider.

Kyra tapped her finger against her glossy lips and considered her dilemma. She’d have to rethink the way she went about everything from here on out. If she had bent to retrieve the bag, as she would have done naturally before, she would redefine the term “mooning” with a view of her hot-pink thong panties. Crouching would have given anyone in front of her a view from the other side.

Michael cursed under his breath and snatched up the bag for her. “What do you have in there? Your lipstick?”

“Lip gloss,” she corrected. And that’s about all that fit into the bag. She didn’t see the point in carrying it at all, really. Except that it had been nice to watch Michael pick it up for her.

She smiled at him and continued toward the door of the club.

She felt fingers encircle her bare arm and gasped when Michael jerked her back and away from where she was about to open the door.

“You’re not going in there,” he said for the fifth time since they’d left her apartment.

“Why not?” she asked. Hopefully now that they stood outside the club she’d get an answer. Before he’d merely gaped at her, doing the fish-out-of-water-mouth-moving bit.

“Because you look like…that,” he finally said.

“Michael, we’ve been over this. This—” she gestured at herself “—is the new me. And the sooner people get used to it, the better off for everyone.”

“I’m never going to get used to it.”

She reached out and patted his cheek. If her hand lingered a little longer than it should have, it was because she enjoyed feeling his stubble sting her skin she told herself. “You will. You’ll see.”

From behind his back he produced a lightweight jacket she recognized as his. She knew he kept it in the back of his SUV for winter early-morning golf outings. He tried to drape it across her shoulders and she successfully stepped away from him.

“What are you doing? It’s hot as blazes out here.”

“But the air-conditioning is on in there.”

“Good,” she said, “maybe it will cool me down.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he said, his gaze dropping to her neckline. “The air conditioner is on in there.”

She stared at him blankly. “You’re not making any sense, Michael. Now, will you stop being such a stick-in-the-mud and come on?”

She heard him mutter a line of curse words and felt her smile widen. She found she liked frustrating him. He was usually the one in control, the one giving her advice, the one always solid and commanding. That she had managed to gain a little bit of control in their friendship made her feel…well, powerful somehow. More adult. And more than just a little sexy.

At this time of day the club was jumping, filled to the rim with the “after work” crowd that had decided to stay, and the night crowd that was just getting started. Kyra did a once-over, immediately knowing that the person she was looking for wasn’t there.

She mentally stumbled, but refused to let that detail stop her. She headed for the long, art-deco bar instead of one of the tables and slid on to one of the stools.

“Hiya cutie.” John Boy, the ’tender, greeted her with a grin and a bowl of peanuts. “What’ll it be?”

“The usual, J.B.,” she said, smiling.

Michael appeared at her side, scowling at the guy who was drinking in his visual fill of her on her other side. “Would you stop,” she admonished with a jab of her elbow. “How’s a girl supposed to make new friends with you scaring everyone off?”

The ’tender put an unfamiliar drink in a shot glass in front of her. “You want a beer chaser?”

Kyra raised her brows. “What’s this?”

“Jim Beam.”

J.B. Jim Beam. Kyra felt like giggling. She’d been coming to the club for four years and not only didn’t John recognize her, he’d missed his own nickname. Her usual drink was a Virgin Mary, with the emphasis on virgin. She’d never ordered beer much less hard liquor before.

“You’re looking a little happy with yourself,” Michael muttered under his breath, accepting a brew from John.

“He doesn’t recognize me,” she whispered, leaning closer to him. She caught a whiff of his cologne. A new scent that subtly coated his skin and made her mouth water with the desire to see if it tasted as good as it smelled.

He turned his scowl on her. “Of course he doesn’t recognize you. I bet you don’t even recognize you.”

She crossed her legs, conceding the point. “This is even more fun than I thought it would be.”

“That’s hard to believe.” Michael downed half his beer then dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, looking a little rumpled and agitated, and completely unlike the Michael Romero she knew. “You were enough of a jerk magnet before. Now…”

Kyra picked up the shot glass, trying to figure out how one went about sipping a drink of this nature.

“You’re supposed to down it all at once,” Michael said, a challenging spark in his dark eyes.

“But wouldn’t that get me drunk?”

“That’s the point.”

She twisted her lips and stared at the drink again.

Her reluctance stemmed from a long-standing dislike of anything having to do with alcohol—any alcohol. She’d grown up with a father who’d drank not to get drunk but to sustain a constant drunkenness. She knew what this presumably innocent-looking poison could do to a person. How it could destroy lives. Distort judgment. Render virtual monsters. It was one of the reasons she’d stayed so far away from anything alcoholic. Except for that one time…The night of her sixteenth birthday. She swallowed hard. She and Alannah had been split up, Alannah to a foster home while she’d been placed with a distant aunt.

She’d hurried home to her aunt’s trailer from her part-time job after school, hoping against hope that her aunt had remembered her birthday just this once. She’d found the cake she’d bought and put in the refrigerator the night before on the table, half-demolished, a fork sticking out of the center of the candles. There’d been a half bottle of vodka next to it, the tipped-over contents soaking what remained. And the money she’d saved, wrapped in foil and stored in the freezer, had been gone. She’d come across her aunt passed out over the side of the bathtub, apparently in the midst of taking a shower.

She’d cleaned her aunt up and put her to bed, thrown away the cake, searched for the vodka bottle her aunt kept stashed in her underwear drawer and walked out to the tree swing. There she had alternately swung and drank until she’d puked her guts out.

She’d never touched another drop again.

Unlike her aunt, who to this day still hoped her niece would finance a trip to the liquor store every time Kyra visited the shadowy trailer outside Memphis.

Kyra’s gaze trailed to Michael and his intense expression. She hadn’t told him that particular story, but he knew many of the details of her background. Her heart swelled at the empathy in his dark eyes while another part of her perked up in challenge.

With more nonchalance than she felt, she said, “Here goes nothing,” and downed the fiery amber liquid.

“Here goes everything,” Michael said, and motioned to John. “Bring her a beer.”

Kyra held her breath, waiting for the burning sensation to pass. Her eyes teared, but she refused to give in to the urge to cough. God, but that was one of the nastiest things she’d ever tasted. Why did people choose to drink such awful stuff?

She gave in and coughed until she was afraid her stomach would end up on the bar in front of her.

Attractive thought.

“Come here often?” she heard a male voice say at her elbow.

A giggle that shocked even Kyra bubbled up from her throat at the terrible come-on line. “All the time.”

She glanced at the man in question. She’d seen him in the club a number of times, but had never talked to him. Word had it that he worked at the insurance agency up the way.

“Buzz off, buddy,” Michael said.

Kyra elbowed him and turned her attention to the other man. “I’m Kyra White,” she said, extending her hand.

The man warily eyed Michael, then took her hand. “Charlie Schwartz’s the name, insurance is my game.”

“Nice to meet you, Charlie.”

His gaze budged slowly from Michael back to her and he leaned forward. “Who’s that?”

She jabbed a thumb in Michael’s direction. “Who, him? You mean aside from being a major pain the butt?” She smiled at both men, earning a scowl from Michael and a grin from Charlie. “He’s my best friend.”

Charlie sidled up a little closer to her. “Sounds like a position I might be interested in.”

“Give me a break,” Michael said.

Kyra reached for the beer the ’tender had put in front of her. “What? Do you think you’re the only man capable of being my friend?”

“I’m saying that Charlie isn’t as interested in being your friend as he is interested in seeing what you’re hiding under that skirt.”

“I have what every other woman has.”

Michael eyed her dubiously. “Yeah, but it’s one he hasn’t seen before.”

Charlie leaned closer. “Can I get you another drink?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Michael said. He straightened from where he was leaning against the bar. “Sorry, Charlie, but this girl’s taken. Hit the road.”

Kyra laughed. Not as a result of Michael’s caveman tactics, but because of the phrase he’d used. “Sorry, Charlie.” She hadn’t heard those words paired up since that commercial. What was it for? Tuna? She couldn’t remember.

She sipped her beer, shrugging when Charlie gave her a questioning gaze. “It was nice to meet you, Charlie.”

MICHAEL TRIED to cover Kyra with his jacket but was thwarted again by a simple shrug of those smooth, great-smelling shoulders.

“Would you stop?” she said with a deep sigh, though the twinkle in her green eyes told him she was thoroughly enjoying his attentions.

“Not until you either agree to cover up or leave.”

She tugged at the hem of that tiny skirt, calling his attention to the legs it barely covered. He cleared his throat and turned his head away, trying like hell to ignore the heat spreading through his groin.

Kyra tugged on his shirtsleeve in playful rebuke. “What is it with you tonight, anyway?”

He scowled at her. “I don’t get what you mean.”

“First you try to stop me from leaving the apartment, then you continually try to cover me up, and now you’re chasing people away from me. You’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Yeah, well, I could say that you’ve never done anything like this before, either,” he said under his breath. “And those people you referred to aren’t people. They’re dogs.”

Her burst of laughter further irritated him. He rubbed the back of his neck and lifted his bottle, only to find he’d emptied it. He raised his brows and lowered the amber glass back to the bar.

“You don’t get it, do you? Even after all these years, and all the jerks you’ve gone out with, you don’t have a clue how the male mind works.”

Kyra sat up a little straighter, then recrossed her legs. “Well, then, maybe you should educate me.”

Educate her. He didn’t want to educate her. He wanted to take her home and lock her up in her apartment, alone, until she came to her senses. “Take that guy, for example.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He wasn’t interested in being your friend. He was interested in checking into the nearest motel room with you.”

“Why not his place?”

“Because his wife’s probably at his place.”

He could tell by the widening of her charcoal-rimmed eyes that she hadn’t noticed the wedding band the idiot hadn’t bothered to take off before approaching Kyra.

“Got you.”

She made a face at him. “I just swapped names with the guy, Michael. Not phone numbers.”

“Only because I chased him off.”

She visually bristled. “And how do you know that doesn’t just prove my point—he wasn’t interested in me sexually, but was only seeking out a male-female friendship?”

“Because the type of male-female friendships that guy’s after include some extracurricular activities.”

“Like tennis?”

“If it includes a bed, yes.”

“Bed tennis. Sounds interesting.”

Michael cleared his throat. “And short-lived.”

Kyra crossed her arms under her newly found breasts. Michael’s gaze followed the movement, no matter how hard he fought not to look. “I’m getting the distinct impression you don’t like my new look, Michael.”

He blinked at her. He loved it. He hated it. He ordered another beer. “If I didn’t think the sole intent of it was to get back at a certain someone, I wouldn’t mind a bit.”

He narrowed his eyes, watching as her skin paled.

“How did you know?” she asked quietly.

“Because I know you.”

“And you’re saying my new look is not me.”

“I’m saying that you can be whatever you want to be, Kyra. But don’t change for some jerk who hasn’t a clue how much you’re worth.”

A thoughtful shadow entered her eyes. Michael grimaced and looked the other way, glaring at the guy next to him who was also appreciating Kyra’s displayed assets.

“And how much am I worth?” she asked, her words a mere whisper in the loud room.

He accepted a fresh beer. “What?”

“Come on. You heard me, Michael. And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Well, he’d certainly stepped straight into that one, hadn’t he?

“Let’s just say, more than ten of the jerks you’ve dated in the past four months combined.”

“That much?”

“More,” he said before he could consider the wisdom of the admission.

“I see.”

Kyra turned her attention back to her own barely touched beer, running her purple-tipped fingernails up and down the bottle, then tugging at the label.

Uh-oh. He hated when she got quiet like this. Mainly because it meant she was formulating a question he would be totally unprepared to answer.

“I’m hungry,” he announced, taking a few bills out of his pocket and flicking them on the bar. “Let’s say we go get something to eat.”

Kyra laid a hand on his arm. “I say we stay and talk about your love life, instead.”

Oh, hell. There it was.

“When’s the last time you went out with someone, Michael?” she asked.

“What’s that got to do with the price of beer?”

She shrugged, jiggling those sweet swells of flesh. “Hey, if my love life is open for discussion, so is yours.”

“Or lack thereof,” he muttered.

“Exactly my point.”

He stared across the bar at the bottles lined up against the mirror. “Kelly Jackson.”

“One dinner doesn’t count.”

“Penelope St. Clair.”

She nodded. “Okay. Yes, you did go out with her a few times. About a year ago. Until she, like everyone else you’ve gone out with, got tired of running second fiddle to your career.”

“Yes, well, maybe I haven’t found a woman as driven to succeed as I am.”

“What about Janet Palmieri? Phyllis said you two had gone out a time or two before I hired on at the firm.”

His partner? He grimaced. Trust the rumor-mongering secretary to fill Kyra in on that unworthy piece of gossip. “Two dinners. Not worth mentioning.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re not willing to put the time you put into your career, into your personal life.”

“Hey, I put time into our friendship.”

She smiled. “Yeah, you do. Curious fact, that.”

“How do you mean?”

“Michael, why haven’t you and I ever gone out?”

Whoa. Dangerous question.

He told himself to keep it light. Light was good. Hesitating was bad.

He held her gaze without blinking. “Come on, Kyra. We go out all the time. We’re out now.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She continued to mutilate the label on her beer bottle. “Why haven’t you ever asked me out?”

“What?” He nearly choked on his own tongue.

“You heard me. You. Me. Why haven’t we ever dated?”

“We work together. And besides, I’m not your type.”

“How do you know?”

He tried to figure out where she was going with this. “Because you’ve never asked me out.”

“Ha-ha.”

He tried to cover her up with his jacket again.

“Try that one more time and I’m going to sock you.”

Michael froze, immediately recognizing the threat in her eyes. At some point in the conversation, she’d grown serious. And her expression reflected that. Was it when she’d asked why he’d never asked her out on a date date? He’d hazard a yes. But that was a question he wasn’t up to answering right now. Simply because he was asking himself the same question.

Another applicant for jerkhood sidled up beside Kyra at the bar. Michael’s fingers tightened on his jacket as he moved to place it across the back of the stool.

The guy in a too white suit that screamed “northern transplant” tugged on his lapels and grinned suggestively at Kyra. “I’ve just come to a conclusion about something.”

Kyra turned her attention to the guy and smiled. “Oh?”

“I’ve decided that I want to come back in my next life as that skirt.”

Michael clenched his jaw at the obvious come-on. And nearly ground his back teeth to a pulp when he heard Kyra’s easy laughter in response.

She launched into an explanation about how she came about wearing the tight, shiny, sorry excuse for a skirt to the stranger, opening the door to conversation even further. Michael’s patience thermometer edged up with each second that passed.

“Mind if I touch it?” the latest jerk said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Oh, sure,” Kyra said.

Michael snatched the guy’s hand away before he could make contact with the leather. “Think again, moron.”

“Michael!” Kyra stared at him in open shock.

“Come on,” he said, planting his jacket over her shoulders along with his hands. When she tried to wriggle away, he tightened his fingers until she gave a little yelp of pain. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Michael…oh!”

He practically hauled her off the barstool, telling himself he didn’t care if she broke an ankle when she stumbled in those sexy—ridiculous heels. He didn’t stop until they were standing outside the door, much as they had the night before, but this time for entirely different reasons.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Kyra said, her face flushed, sparks lighting her remarkable green eyes.

“Yeah, well, believe it,” he said, allowing her to shrug out of the jacket now that they were outside in the thick August heat. “It was either that or I was going to hit the guy.” He leaned closer to her. “Don’t tell me you bought that stupid come-on line.”

She thrust out her chin, putting her face even closer to his. “It was original. And he was nice.”

“He was a jerk.”

“Well right now, you’re the only one acting like a—”

Michael wasn’t sure how, when or why it had happened. One moment he’d been arguing with her, the next his gaze had fastened on her animated mouth, and he’d been filled with such an urgent need to kiss her that he…well, he did.

And the instant his lips met hers, he knew he was a goner.

Somehow he’d always known, deep down inside, that kissing Kyra would be a life-altering event. She’d bitten most of her shiny lip gloss away, leaving only the smooth, plump texture of her lips. So full. So warm. So inviting. So damn irresistible.

Her eyes were wide and full of disbelief. But Michael couldn’t help himself. With a soft groan he thread his fingers through her spiky blond hair and hauled her closer, shuddering when she went boneless against him, her lips parted, her tongue darting out as if in anticipation of his next kiss.

WOW….

Kyra opened up under the assault of Michael’s decadent mouth. The equivalent of a Fourth of July fireworks display exploded in her mind, the next burst bigger than the last, until her toes curled up tight in her high-heeled sandals. All she could think was that it was a good thing Michael was holding her up or she would have collapsed to the sidewalk in a puddle of steaming lust.

Oh, sure, she’d often times wondered what it would be like to kiss Michael. But that was usually when she was in bed by herself late at night, reading her latest favorite romance novel. And if she got a little carried away in the shower from time to time with thoughts of Michael’s grinning face running through her mind, well that was between her and her handheld shower massager.

But the real thing…wow! The real thing was proving to be better than anything even her favorite romance novelist could have cooked up. As Michael’s tongue plundered her all too willing mouth, she thought each and every one of her cells would fuse into the next until she wasn’t so much a separate entity but rather a physical part of the man kissing her.