Bungalow Nights(50)
All night long.
Yes, nothing had changed...except, she thought with a delicious, dangerous shiver, for the sleeping arrangements.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE SETTING WAS PARADISE: blue sky, palm trees, golden beach and gentle surf. The soundtrack worked, too, a pleasing combination of waves hitting sand punctuated by seagull calls. On the deck of the beach house, Vance basked in good cheer that was as warm as the sunshine, even though the woman he’d have in his bed that night was standing in front of him, arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head. “I’m not going to do it.”
“Jeez, Layla,” he said, proffering the hair clippers again, “you’re a soldier’s daughter. All I’m asking—”
“Not going to do it. Nuh-uh.”
He ran his fingers through his too-long hair, managing to avoid clunking his skull with his cast. Hey, progress. “Baby...”
“I like that it’s longer,” she said, coming forward to touch it herself. “Another inch and I think it might have a wave. Even curl.”
“Bite your tongue.” He batted her hand away. “My hair wouldn’t dare do that again.”
“‘Again’?” Layla’s eyes narrowed. “You had curls at one time?”
“Of course not,” he lied.
She smiled, clearly delighted, and sidled closer, pressing her sweet body to his. “Vance Smith. I bet you were the cutest thing.”
He copped a feel of her butt with his free hand and couldn’t help but smile back. “It was a crime, what she did to me.”
“Who?” She leaned up to kiss his stubbled chin.
It tickled, and he made a mental note to shave before bed so he wouldn’t whisker-burn the soft and tender place between her thighs he meant to explore for at least half the night. She bussed him again, and he slid his hand to the back of her head, holding her in place for a real kiss. Lips to lips. Tongue to tongue. God, he loved that lemon icing taste of hers.
“Who?” she said against his mouth.
He lifted his head. “What?” Damn, the woman distracted him. “Oh, who. My mother.”
“So it’s her DNA that’s responsible for the ringlets?”
Vance kept his arm around Layla, pleased to have her pretty face so close. “Probably. But what I meant was how sneakily she cultivated my head of hair.”
Layla smiled again. “Do tell.”
“You know what an active kid I was. Sports, bikes, you name it. Go, go, go all the time. So when I was in the sixth grade and she didn’t hound me to go, go, go to the barber, I didn’t complain or question, because it gave me more play time. Didn’t give a thought to why I wasn’t seeing scissors even though Fucking Perfect Fitz kept regular appointments.”
“Fucking Perfect Fitz has hair straight as a stick.”
He loved how his brother’s nickname just rolled off her tongue. So he had to kiss her again, and tongue that tongue, and generally just enjoy the hell out of himself for a few minutes. Who knew something so fine could come out of that battlefield promise?
Maybe there was something to this Beach House No. 9 mystique, after all. Griffin and Jane certainly seemed to think so. The man was different than he’d been overseas—his smile more ready, his restlessness calmed.
When Vance’s kiss for Layla ended, she was still fixated on the subject of his long-ago style. “So, Rapunzel, your hair just kept growing...”
“Into ringlets, like you guessed.” Huh. He hadn’t meant to confess that to her, but he’d told her so many things about himself. Maybe more than he’d ever told anybody. Certainly any woman. “Fat ringlets.”
“To his shoulders,” a new voice added. “And when our family went on vacation that summer, every day someone mistook him for a girl.”
Vance whirled to confront his brother, climbing the steps to the deck. He looked as put-together as ever—not as GQ as Baxter, but pure dean’s list in khakis and a sports shirt. His face looked tired, though, a strain around his eyes.
It only pissed Vance off more that he noticed the change. “What the hell is with you, Fitz?” His day had been so damn happy. “Rain on someone else’s parade.”
“Is that any way to talk to the guy who saved you from a rattlesnake?”
Stepping away from Layla, Vance glared. “That’s such crap. You were wrong—it was a garter snake, which someone with your IQ should have realized.”
Fitz managed to look down his nose at him, which was quite a feat considering he was shorter. “Isn’t it the thought that counts?”
“When you shoved me away, I landed on my chin.” He tapped the scar. “Five stitches, bro.”
“It just furthered your romance with the intake nurse in the E.R.” Fitz shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Should I be jealous?” Layla’s voice broke into the tension.
Fitz shifted his gaze. “She knew his insurance number by heart. One look at those curls and the ladies were charmed.” A small smile curved his lips and he looked younger, almost like the 14-year-old who’d believed he’d been saving his little brother.
It twisted Vance’s gut. Sometimes Fucking Perfect Fitz made it almost impossible to hate him. “So what do you want this time?”
His brother looked away, then looked back. “The other occasions... The first time was to urge you to contact Mom, the second to return the ring. But now...I’m here for myself, V.T. To make things right between us.”
Vance just stared at him.
“You’re my little brother,” Fitz started.
“It’s not like I’ve forgotten,” Vance said, impatient. “I’m the screwup, the can’t-be-trusted, the not-good-as-you.”
“Those are your words, not mine.” Fitz frowned. “And I’m not here to insult you, dammit. I’m here to make sure you understand about...about me and Blythe.”
“Not that again. Jesus, go find another dead horse to beat, will you?”
Fitz wore a familiar dogged expression, however, the same one he used to have when digging into an extra credit problem set for Advanced Calculus. “I swear that I didn’t make any moves on her before she broke your engagement.”
Vance rolled his eyes.
“Sure, I thought she was beautiful and I couldn’t believe—”
“She’d tie herself to the black sheep of the family? But that didn’t last, did it?”
Fitz sighed. “It just happened, okay? But not before—”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Layla interrupted, surprising them both. She stomped over to Fitz and he retreated until the small of his back smacked the railing around the deck. Her forefinger poked him in the chest. “Just apologize to your brother.”
Fitz blinked. “Wha—”
“I’m an only child,” Layla said right over him, “but even I know there’s a no-poaching rule between siblings, breakup or no. So tell Vance you’re sorry and maybe you have a chance of him forgiving you.”
Vance’s mouth twitched. God, she made him want to smile, for championing him yet again, and for humbling Fucking Perfect Fitz for perhaps the first time in his life. Because, yep, his brother just stood there, his mouth half-open, the dumb look on his face saying he didn’t know what to think or do next.
A few minutes of silence passed. Finally Fitz looked from Layla to Vance. “She’s right, V.T. I...I beg your pardon.” Then he held out his hand. “Are we good?”
Vance strode forward, for all the world appearing as if he was intent on sealing the peace with a handshake. At the last second, though, instead of meeting Fitz’s palm, he shoved at his brother’s shoulders, hard, sending him toppling over the railing and onto the sand four feet below. Then he peered down at the other man through narrowed eyes. “You ass. It’s not going to be that easy.”
Fitz lay flat on his back, his hair disheveled, his button-down shirt askew, his gaze on the blue overhead. A sudden memory flashed in Vance’s mind. Two young boys, shoulder to shoulder, finding shapes in the clouds. Usually something so tame would bore restless Vance, but Fitz had found a pirate ship in the sky and was spinning the tale of two buccaneer brothers who spent a lifetime together fighting side by side, gathering riches and helping the poor. Figured Fitz’s sea bandits were Robin Hoods, Vance mused now.
Though different from each other, they’d been close as kids. Later, when Vance was semi-estranged from their parents, Fitz had tried to retain the brotherly closeness—when Vance wasn’t deployed he’d called on a regular basis and dropped by for a beer on occasion, no matter how cool a response he’d received in return.
Fucking Perfect Fitz, always doing the right, responsible thing.
He’d counted on that, Vance realized, and had been shocked by his brother’s hooking up with Blythe. It had sliced deep, he realized now, much, much deeper than being dumped by his fiancée. And he’d been grieving over that break with Fitz ever since.