Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) Page 17

  Her mouth went dry while the rest of her went up in needy flames that made her want to scratch the all-but-gone rash he’d tended so well on Monday. “Nope,” Natalie squeaked. “Not okay then.”

  His eyes crinkled in the corners. Her feet flexed, ready to push her up over the bar so she could taste the smile on his lips. But even with the whiskey for courage, she couldn’t overcome the weight of her responsibilities or her habit of keeping to Bliss’s shadows. His gaze swept downward to her peach printed v-neck.

  Lindsey—Nat’s designated driver tonight—cleared her throat. “How about some refills?”

  CJ’s gaze went back up to Natalie’s face, lingering on her lips. “Sure. How about you?”

  Natalie blinked. “Me?”

  “You want another?”

  “Oh, yes. Please.” Another kiss. Another taste. Another chance to feel hard male muscle and hot male skin. Preferably with all requisite precautions in place, and preferably with a satisfying conclusion.

  Her libido was so totally out of hibernation she was surprised people weren’t staring at the hungry growls coming from her long-neglected body.

  His eyes went a darker shade of green. “Coming right up.”

  She wanted something else up. Her cheeks flared, and she felt a pull low in her belly—the kind she hadn’t experienced since—well, since they’d made out here on Monday.

  CJ straightened with a cocky grin. “Anything else? Kimmie—food or anything?”

  Kimmie shook her head.

  He moved away.

  Two sets of inquisitive stares, one on either side of Natalie, demanded she say something. She squirmed on the barstool, tugged at her too-tight skirt, then lifted her eyebrows at her companions in turn as if she weren’t the horny elephant in the room. “What? I haven’t gotten drunk since I got pregnant.”

  Or laid.

  Obviously.

  “My mom is going to blow a bread basket when she hears about this,” Kimmie said.

  Lindsey waved a hand. “What she doesn’t know won’t kill her.”

  “There’s nothing to know.” But even Natalie’s whiskey couldn’t convince her that was the truth.

  “You have your eyes checked lately?”

  “I don’t think she was looking with her eyes,” Kimmie said. “Of course, my vagina would know if a guy were watching me like that.”

  Several nearby men stared at them.

  “Can we leave our vaginas out of this?” Natalie whispered. The whole bar didn’t need to know the status of hers.

  Kimmie eyed CJ. “I can, but I don’t know if he can. Yours, that is. Although, obviously, you’d have to be a willing participant, which didn’t look like a problem, but—sorry. I know. Shut up.”

  “No, no, I’m enjoying this,” Lindsey said.

  Kimmie rolled her lower lip into her mouth, eyeing Natalie and Lindsey as though she couldn’t decide whose side to take. “I had a dream last night I had a pet alligator that burped bubbles. I thought about trying to make a cake out of it, for kid birthday parties or something. Except when the bubbles popped, these rabid elves with flaming lightsabers came out and set up battlegrounds in my bathroom, and then these Swiss buttercream monsters came out of the tub. It was kinda weird.”

  The guy next to Kimmie flipped out his wallet, dropped two bills on the bar, and left his beer half-finished.

  CJ came back and slid fresh drinks to Natalie and Lindsey. He glanced at the empty barstool next to Kimmie.

  “My fault,” she sighed. “I said vagina. Sorry.”

  CJ gave her a brotherly kind of smile that made Natalie like him a little bit more. “His problem, not yours,” he said. “Unless you asked him if he had a vagina. Then you might’ve been out of line.”

  Kimmie looked temporarily horrified until Lindsey laughed.

  “You’re joking,” Kimmie said. “Right. That’s almost as funny as my mom and their—oomph!”

  Lindsey straightened like she hadn’t just reached around Natalie to poke Kimmie in the ribs. “So.” Lindsey waved at CJ’s cheering section across the bar. “You want to know who your best bets are over there?”

  Before Nat could turn a glare on her sister, CJ shook his head. “Pass. Thanks.”

  Lindsey gave Natalie an obnoxious You’re welcome smile.

  “You should use her,” Kimmie said. “Not use her use her, but use her skills. She’s super good at matchmaking.”

  “Preventing unwanted relationships,” Lindsey corrected.

  At the R-word, CJ took a not-so-subtle step back.

  Natalie’s mood did too. If they acted on this—whatever it was—it would be temporary. An itch-scratching. Nothing more. What he needed was one of those women in his cheering section.

  Not the divorced woman on The Aisle.

  Her stomach folded over itself and cramped like someone had tied it in a bow. She should’ve stayed home and worked.

  CJ cleared the money and the glass from the place next to Kimmie, already beating a quick retreat. “Let us know if you want something,” he called over his shoulder.

  Natalie slouched over the bar. “How do you do it?” she said to Lindsey.

  “Do what?”

  “Date.”

  She meant to add casually. Something about Lindsey’s three-dates-or-three-weeks rule. Instead, the single word hung between them.

  “He’s interested, Nat,” Lindsey finally said.

  “Remember that whole vagina thing?” Kimmie added.

  “But he needs a temporary wife, and I—I can’t be it.”

  “Yeah, my mom would twist your pastry bags so hard, you’d shoot buttercream out the wrong end.”

  “Screw her. If you’re leaving Bliss, go out in style.” Lindsey’s smile turned sly. “By doing something bigger than just calling the health department.”

  “Hush. How did you—never mind.”

  Kimmie clapped her hands over her ears. “I didn’t hear that.”

  “Mom wanted her last Games to be epic,” Lindsey murmured. “Guarantee you no one would forget.”

  God.

  There was no way in hell Natalie could be CJ’s partner.

  But she still wanted to date him. She wanted to date him and have sex with him and laugh with him. And the Queen General wasn’t her biggest obstacle.

  “But I don’t date well,” Nat whispered.

  Lindsey’s lips quivered, and Natalie caught her telltale eye crinkle.

  “Don’t laugh,” Natalie said. “The only reason I had prom and homecoming dates in high school was because their parents made them take me.”

  “Please. Even if that was true, it was high school. No one dates well in high school.”

  “Or after, for some of us.” Kimmie still had her hands over her ears, but she leaned closer.

  “Derek was the first guy to ask me out after I graduated college. Two years. No guys asked me out for two years after I came home. The single sons on the The Aisle? They’d all duck and cover when they saw me coming. Max, Luke, all of them. Jake Sydney convinced me he was dating his cousin when I asked him to the Husband Games reception once. None of them want me to get my claws in them.”

  “Natalie—”

  “I made Derek marry me, because I was afraid no one else would.”

  Lindsey didn’t say anything.

  Neither did Kimmie.

  Probably because it was the truth. “How do you do it? How do you get a guy to just go on a couple of dates with you? How do you get what you want and then just move on?”

  Lindsey’s eyes pinched. Briefly, but long enough for Nat to notice. Lindsey had never talked about settling down. About having a wedding. About raising babies. Even before she picked her law specialty, she’d never had the princess dreams.

  But Nat had wondered a time or two if her sister’s love life was truly that simple. “Lindsey, I didn’t mean—”

  “There’s a difference between enjoying a man’s company because you can and taking a chance with the right guy because
you should. I don’t have a right guy. You? You might. But you won’t know if you don’t jump.”

  Natalie looked closer at her big sister. “How do you know you don’t have a right guy?”

  “I just know.”

  Not the If-I-haven’t-found-him-yet, he-doesn’t-exist excuse Natalie expected. Because for someone who claimed to be good at spotting bad matches, Lindsey was damn good at spotting the perfect temporary hookup.

  She’d also never said she didn’t want a husband and a family of her own.

  A déjà vu kind of shiver prickled Natalie’s skin. “Oh,” she whispered. “Who was he?”

  A rare show of color impeded Lindsey’s normally placid complexion. “Who?”

  “Don’t lawyer me. You were in l-o-v-e once, weren’t you? What happened?” Nat sucked in an excited breath. “Or who is he? Is he married? Is he a client? Ohmigod, Lindsey. Did he die?”

  Lindsey’s eye roll was so big, it nearly smacked Natalie off her stool.

  “I believe we were talking about you,” Lindsey said. The guy on her other side bumped her, and Lindsey hunched her shoulders in.

  Sympathy and gratitude that Lindsey was here, braving the crowd on a busy night, overwhelmed Natalie’s urge to keep prying. “Playing that card?” Nat murmured.

  “Yep.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  A burst of laughter at the top of the bar drew their attention. A few of the guys from the Bliss Bachelors baseball team were gathered around, listening to CJ and howling.

  It was wrong that she’d spent so many years blaming someone so fun and full of life for the worst part of hers.

  So wrong that he’d had to suffer all he had as well.

  Lindsey squeezed her hand. “Your life’s changing, Nat. Take a chance. Worst case, you’ve lost a few nights. Best case, you end up with something special for both you and Noah.” She jerked her chin toward CJ. “Won’t know if you don’t try.”

  “What’s with you? This isn’t your normal kind of anti-pep talk.”

  “The guy has eleven sisters, he’s living with a priest, spending half his week doing odd jobs for his deceased wife’s parents, and he apologized to you for the kiss that wasn’t his fault. If he’s psycho, he’s hiding it deep. So I formally have no objections. Further, I’d like to see you happy. Because you deserve it.”

  Did she? Could she? Natalie didn’t know. “That’s quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.”

  “It’s true.” Lindsey nudged her. “Mom would tell you to go for it.”

  Natalie blinked at the hot tingle behind her eyeballs.

  “Not till after Knot Fest though, okay?” Kimmie said. “I’m not kidding. My mom will toast your coconuts worse than she did Bonnie and Earl’s.”

  Natalie swung all the way around, her blood suddenly zumba-ing through her veins. “She what?”

  “Did I say toast? I meant flambéed. Mom turned the Games over to Duke and Elsie. You—you hadn’t heard?”

  Natalie shook her head. It explained why Duke and Elsie had been at the sunflower field. And it was probably good news for the Games.

  Very good news.

  But it still should’ve been Natalie’s job.

  “And Bonnie and Earl are putting their shop up for sale,” Kimmie said. “Apparently none of their kids want it, and after the shame of, well, you know, they’re retiring.”

  Being kicked off the Knot Fest committee could do that to a couple.

  Kimmie leaned closer. “Rumor is, they’re not handling being empty nesters well. They’ve been secretly having marital counseling over in Willow Glen. And since you had everything with the Games under control…They kinda checked out a while ago, you know?”

  Natalie had noticed. Hearing it was because of marital issues—that put a new light on things. Her sympathy for Bonnie and Earl went up a few thousand points.

  But it still didn’t change all that Natalie had done and would never get credit for.

  “Just the rumor I heard,” Kimmie added. “They didn’t tell mom the part about you.”

  “Nat?” Lindsey said. “You okay?”

  CJ had moved down the bar to his fan club again. To real women who had real chances of being a good partner to him in the Games. Mom’s Games. That Duke and Elsie Sparks would get all the credit for. That Dad would be playing in with a woman who wasn’t Mom.

  That second whiskey sour was a bad, bad idea. “I’m tired,” Natalie said. “Have you guys watched Outlander yet? I have it on DVR. We could swing through Wok’n’Roll and get some sweet ’n sour chicken.”

  Lindsey looked across the bar at CJ, then back at Natalie. “We’re already out. Let’s stay and enjoy. I’m officially designating this an Aisle-free, Husband Games-free, man-free zone. If you’re still tired in ten minutes, I’ll take you home. Promise.”

  “Man-free?” Natalie smelled a trap.

  Lindsey waved a hand at the three men crowding her on her other side. “We’ll just pretend they’re all eunuchs. Or have Kimmie yell vagina a couple more times.”

  “Jesus.” The guy closest to Lindsey pushed his drink back, set a few dollars on the bar, and went the way of Kimmie’s former barstool neighbor. The guy who was now closest to her shot her a scowl and scooted over one more, so now there were two seats between them.

  “See?” Lindsey’s shoulders relaxed, and the pinched look in her eyes faded.

  Natalie laughed. “Man-free. Got it.” She could ogle CJ all she wanted. Which was still a very, very bad idea. She pointed to the clock. “Ten minutes.”

  “You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?”

  “Nine minutes, and you’re beginning to annoy me.”

  Lindsey grinned. “Oh, honey, I’m just getting started.”

  She lifted a finger at CJ, and he crossed back to them. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “We’d like some cheese fries,” Lindsey said. “Bonus points if you can get some bacon on them.”

  “You got it.” He signaled the kitchen.

  The kitchen where he’d nearly made Natalie explode. Her thighs squeezed. “He can’t do that in seven minutes,” she said.

  “Eight and a half. And it’ll take the same amount of time to get to Wok’n’Roll and wait on an order there.”

  “Plus, this way you don’t have to worry about fortune cookies.” Kimmie dropped her voice and glanced around. “I probably shouldn’t be here tonight. I got one the other day that said I should avoid public places until I’d made peace with my past.”

  Natalie smiled again. “What could you possibly have in your past to make peace with?”

  “You’d be surprised. Oh! Fries! Yum.”

  CJ slid a plate of cheese fries, complete with bacon crumbles, onto the bar. “Enjoy, ladies.”

  Gap-jawed, Natalie checked the clock over the mirror. “No way.” That was entirely too fast.

  Impossibly fast.

  “He’s really good,” Kimmie said.

  “He is,” Lindsey agreed. “Wouldn’t you say, Nat?”

  Her lady bits sighed in agreement. “How’d you do that?”

  “Fate. We were supposed to have cheese fries tonight.”

  Natalie pointed to the empty seat on Lindsey’s other side. “He ordered some before you chased him away, didn’t he?”

  Lindsey grinned. “Eat up. You’ll feel better once you get some food on top of your whiskey.”

  It was a decent enough theory to test, and the fries smelled pretty dang good, so Natalie dug in. And it turned out, cheese fries were way better than Chinese tonight.

  So was hanging out at Suckers with Lindsey and Kimmie again. Between the food and the whiskey and the scenery, Natalie hardly noticed the next hour slipping by.

  But then Kimmie sat straight and went pale. “Oh, pumplegunker.” She dove under the bar.

  Natalie craned to see what Kimmie had noticed, above or below the bar, but she couldn’t pick out anything—or anyone—in particular. It was just the normal, non-Aisle crowd mixing with
out-of-town wedding guests of the male variety, with CJ’s fan club thrown in for good measure.

  “Kimmie?” Natalie said.

  “Everything okay?” Lindsey added.

  “Dropped something,” Kimmie murmured from her hiding place. “Oh, no. Here it is.” She glanced up, but didn’t straighten or retrieve anything. “Um, guys? I think I left my shower on. I should—you know—go check on that. Don’t want my house to burn down.”

  “Because you left your shower on?” Natalie wasn’t that inebriated. She hadn’t even finished her second drink.

  “Oven! I meant my oven.” Kimmie cast a desperate look across the room, still hunched over. “Stupid fortune cookie.”

  Natalie shared a look with Lindsey, then caught CJ’s attention.

  “Back door?” she asked him.

  He didn’t quirk a single eyelash at Kimmie. He did, however, scan the building before giving a subtle nod toward the back. “C’mon, Kimmie. I’ll get you out through the kitchen.”

  “Thanks,” she squeaked.

  CJ strolled to the kitchen, upright like nothing was wrong. Kimmie attracted only a mild bit of attention by walking like a duck with back problems on her way out.

  But it was Kimmie.

  So the sight was only mildly unusual.

  “His sisters trained him well.” Lindsey scanned the crowd too, frowning, but her gaze didn’t pause on any suspects.

  CJ casually sauntered back past them. “Any idea if somebody needs his ass kicked?” he asked.

  “Nope,” Lindsey said. “She say anything?”

  “Her toaster’s been malfunctioning and she’s afraid she left it out for the cats to turn on.”

  “She’ll tell us when she’s ready,” Natalie said.

  CJ nodded. “Smart thinking there.” He tapped the bar twice. “You ladies holler if you need anyone’s ass kicked.”

  “Aren’t you sweet,” Lindsey said. “But we’re perfectly capable of kicking ass on our own.”

  “I know. I want to watch.”

  There went Natalie’s lady bits again.

  Suckers was crowded enough that other customers quickly claimed the empty seats on either side of Natalie and Lindsey, but since one of them was Gabby, they didn’t mind. She’d had her first fitting this week, and she was even happier with her dress than Natalie was. Gabby had final projects to tackle for her last semester of school, though, so she didn’t stay long. Shortly after she left, Lindsey got a phone call. She glanced at the display, and a frown the size of the wedding cake statue darkened her expression. “Right back,” she said to Natalie, then slid off her stool and toward the bathroom.