Sweet Summer Sunset Read online

  Damien pulled himself out of his trance and looked at Nico as if remembering he was there. What Damien didn’t do was take back his remarks and admit that he’d said them in a whiny-assed fit of self-indulgent temper. In fact, judging from Damien’s suddenly steely stare—which still looked whiny-assed to Nico—he was going to dig in his heels when it came to his opinion of his ex.

  An opinion that dickweed Damien had no right to have.

  “No other man is interested in Eden,” Damien restated like a challenge. “You don’t know about her sexual problems.”

  No, Nico didn’t know about those. Nor did he want to. Well, not immediately anyway, but this was the first he was hearing about Eden having any problems with sex. Of course, Nico challenged Damien right back. In fact, he tossed aside common sense and any other troublesome logic, and he jammed his thumb against his chest.

  “I’m interested in her,” Nico declared. “Very interested. And you’d better get used to it.”

  Damien’s mouth dropped open. That was quickly followed by a “have you lost your mind?” groan from Kace. Nico ignored both of them, and he turned to go inside. Because he was well aware that he’d just tossed the gauntlet and drawn a big-ass line in the sand.

  Now the question was—what was he going to do about it?

  Leaving his audience—Damien, Kace and the nosy neighbors—Nico walked to the door, and when Eden opened it lightning fast, he realized she’d been part of that audience, too.

  And she wasn’t happy about what she’d heard.

  Welcome to the club. Nico wasn’t especially thrilled with any part of that conversation, either.

  “You’re not going to ask me about that sexual problem, are you?” she said right off.

  Of all the things she must have heard, it didn’t surprise him that she’d latched on to that one. But for Nico, it had been the straw that’d broken the camel’s back.

  “I couldn’t let Damien get away with saying that no other man was interested in you,” he whispered.

  Yeah, that was going to stick with her for a while. Not good. Eden’s self-esteem had already taken too many shots because of Damien.

  Nico saw the instant change in her expression. The anger that had lit her eyes cooled some. Eden lowered her shoulders, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth to steady it.

  “What an ass,” she grumbled, shooting a steely glare over Nico’s shoulder.

  Nico glanced back, too, and saw that Damien and Kace were now talking in hushed whispers. Damien was probably trying to justify why he’d just doled out that ass-like behavior to a woman he’d once loved.

  “He is,” Nico verified. “And I’d like to give him a dose of something to bring his ego down a notch.”

  That got her attention, and Eden’s gaze quickly shifted back to him. She didn’t ask him what he planned on doing, but she did study his face. Then, his mouth.

  “You’re going to kiss me?” she asked, her voice not thick with heat—no surprise there—but with deep concern.

  Nico didn’t let on that he was in the concern mode, too. That’s because he was still steaming over Damien and wanting to teach his former friend a lesson. It didn’t matter if this was likely the worst teaching tool in the history of teaching tools. He just went with it anyway.

  Nico slid his hand around the back of her neck and leaped right into the mistake. He kissed his best friend. In the grand plan he’d semiformulated in his mind, he meant to keep it short and sweet. Mentally chaste.

  That didn’t happen.

  The moment his lips touched her soft mouth, he felt the heat slide through him, all the way to the brainless part of him behind his zipper. The part of him that usually landed him in women’s beds and other places he shouldn’t be.

  Strange that he would feel this heat when it was Eden’s mouth. And Eden’s breasts touching his chest. It was wrong. All wrong. Even when they’d been teenagers, he’d trained himself not to think of her as anything but a friend.

  As Damien’s girl.

  She couldn’t have been anything else without it tearing apart their friendship. Well, it was darn sure doing some tearing now because she shouldn’t have tasted like this. Shouldn’t have felt like this.

  Nico moved away from her, his grip easing off the back of her neck. He manned up, meeting her eye to eye so he could determine just how much of an apology he owed her. Nico knew it would need to be a big one when Eden muttered two little words.

  “Well, shit.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LET ME FIX this for you. Please.

  Along with several other things, those words had continued to play through Eden’s head for the past two days. It was what Nico had said to her when he’d taken Damien outside for a chat. And while she hadn’t expected a miracle in the fixing department, Eden also hadn’t thought that talk would lead her to where it did.

  To that kiss.

  Over the years, she’d seen Nico kiss other women. Mercy, had she. She’d even considered how it might feel to be kissed by a man who seemed to be a champion at it. Heck, a time or two she’d even fantasized about him. She was a woman after all.

  One with twenty-twenty eyesight and fully functioning nether regions.

  No way could she have completely ignored all that hotness. But it had gotten easier for her to do that once she’d become Damien’s lover. Then his wife. Then, she’d saved all her fantasies for him.

  More or less.

  For the sake of her marriage, she’d moved Nico firmly into the best-friend compartment of her life. That meant that other than the occasional dream or lapse, she hadn’t thought about his own fully functioning nether regions.

  That kiss had opened new doors. Ones that Nico and just about everyone else thought should have stayed closed. She wasn’t his type, people were probably saying. And she was his friend’s ex-wife. That had to cross a boundary or two. But probably the biggest concern of the gossip would center on one hashed-over question.

  Was she Nico’s “new” woman?

  Of course, Nico and she knew the answer to that. No. She wasn’t. He’d kissed her for just one reason. To get back at Damien for the mean things he’d said about her. That’d been Nico’s sole motivation, and like her, he probably hadn’t expected to feel anything when he’d planted that lip-lock on her. Well, nothing except some “nanny nanny boo boo” aimed at Damien.

  But there’d been heat.

  Oh yes.

  And in that handful of seconds that the kiss had lasted, Eden had gotten enough carnal knowledge about Nico to understand why he got frequent invitations to women’s beds. Of course, his looks had helped with that, too. All that thick tousled black hair. The sizzling eyes.

  Things she shouldn’t be thinking about. No. She needed to focus on the big picture here. The kiss had fixed the Damien problem. Well, it had if she considered his storming off like a cranky toddler fixing things. She’d very much enjoyed that fit of temper. Not as much as she’d enjoyed the kiss but still...

  The kiss hadn’t fixed other things, though. After the gossips had hashed out that kiss, the talk would be of Nico and her as a couple. That could be a good thing, considering Nico might be looking for someone to meet Rayelle’s approval. And Rayelle might indeed see Eden as stable enough so that Piper’s sensibilities wouldn’t be warped.

  Might.

  Or Rayelle could just see this as another rung on the ladder of the poor relationship decisions that Nico had made over the years. Nico might be on board with that possible assessment, too.

  Despite that kiss and what he’d said to Damien, Eden knew Nico was having second and third thoughts. Not only about the possible pretense with her as his “stable” woman but also second thoughts about Piper’s and Rayelle’s visit to Coldwater. He loved Piper and would definitely want to make sure she was okay, but Nico wasn’t just going to buy into Raye
lle’s theory about his needing a woman to keep Piper on whatever course in life that Rayelle had deemed the right one.

  Her phone dinged with a text. From Damien, of course. Since the “blowup” with Nico, her ex had texted her multiple times a day, including when she’d been at work earlier at the law office. He’d also tried to call her, but she had let those go straight to voice mail.

  The only reason she hadn’t outright blocked the number was because their divorce agreement had spelled out he needed to be able to reach her for “custody” arrangements/plans for Miss Kitty. That didn’t mean though that she had to talk to him about anything else. She deleted the texts and instead had used the dinging sound as a sort of thump upside her head. A reminder for her to get back to work and stop letting her thoughts drift.

  Eden went back to what she should be doing—working on the blog. She didn’t need to write a new response today, but she did need to sort through previous posts for her “best of sex advice.” It was something she did several times a year, and it always garnered her the highest page hits, something her advertisers most certainly noticed.

  She bookmarked “Hot in the Saddle” to be included. The poster had asked for tips on having creative sex with a horse trainer. Eden had written it BTD—before the divorce—so it didn’t have the snarky, disillusioned tone of some of her more recent stuff.

  “Use the saddle, of course,” Eden had written. “Put it on the bed or floor, get naked and hop on with your hot-to-trot trainer. Then, gallop up the pace Naughty Cowgirl–style by putting the reins on him. Tug, pull and wrangle him in.”

  Eden had added some more suggestions that involved a creative way to use the saddle horn and horse collar. Successful suggestions apparently since the person had sent a video to prove she’d followed Eden’s instructions. Of course, Eden had deleted it without watching it—too much.

  She thought of that video now. Heck, she thought of sex, which wasn’t that much of a surprise, considering she was reading about it. BTD, the blog posts had been a sort of foreplay for Damien and her. Not that she’d needed a whole lot of that what with her peculiar “problem.” But the foreplay nudge had stopped after Damien left.

  Except she felt a little tingle of it now.

  She smiled, enjoying the little buzz. A buzz that vanished when the image that came into her mind was Nico. Specifically, of Nico standing up to Damien. Of Nico lounging on her sofa. Of the way his jeans fit his amazing butt.

  Of Nico and his jeans when he lounged on her sofa.

  Her phone dinged again, the sound causing her to make a startled gasp. Another text from Damien and also her cue to move on, so that’s what Eden did.

  She shook her head to clear out the last of the tinglies and went back to work, scrolling through the files of posts. The next one she bookmarked for “best of” was “Sneaky Tongues” from a woman who wanted to keep her sexual relationship a secret.

  “Go for phone sex,” Eden had advised. “But while talking to your guy, send him photos of yourself to let him know what his words are doing to you. Then, gallop up the pace Naughty Cowgirl–style with you wearing just a Stetson and boots.”

  This time her phone didn’t ding. It rang. And Eden automatically flicked away the annoyance of Damien trying to call her again. But that wasn’t his name on the screen.

  It was Piper’s.

  Eden didn’t have annoyance to flick away but rather concern. It wasn’t the first time the girl had called her. They had spoken several times when Piper had been trying to figure out what she could get Nico for Christmas or his birthday. But the timing of this particular call made Eden think the topic would be a little more serious.

  “Piper,” she answered, and Eden tried not to sound worried.

  “Do you know what’s going on with Nico and Aunt Rayelle?” the girl demanded. Piper didn’t even attempt a no-worry tone.

  Since Eden wasn’t sure she had the latest update from Nico about this, she went with a noncommittal, “Sort of.”

  The huff Piper made was loud enough that people in Vermont probably heard it. “Please try to talk Aunt Rayelle into us coming to Coldwater. The woman won’t listen to me. She keeps saying how Nico is inappropriate parental material.”

  Eden figured those last three words were verbatim from Rayelle. “And what does Nico say about that?” Again, Eden was going for noncommittal.

  Another huff. “That he wants me there with him for the summer, but that it’s up to Aunt Rayelle since she has custody and all. You can talk her into it. I know you can.”

  The girl had a lot more faith in Eden than she did. “I’m not sure Rayelle even likes me.”

  “She’s not happy about you getting a divorce, but she doesn’t call you ‘inappropriate parental material.’ I think she’d listen to you if you explained that Nico is grieving and that I could help with that.”

  Eden had been about to go for a third noncommittal round, but that last bit stopped her. Nico was indeed grieving. And so was Piper. Heck, Rayelle was, too, but they weren’t anywhere near on the same pages with that grief.

  “Please talk to her,” Piper pressed. That was apparently it. The end of the girl’s argument. And it was a darn effective one, too.

  “All right,” Eden said but had to pause when Piper squealed in delight. “First though, I’ll speak to Nico about it.”

  “Today,” Piper insisted. “Talk to him today.”

  Since Eden had planned on doing that anyway, she assured the girl she would and ended the call so she could text Nico with a simple message:

  Got time to meet up? Piper wants me to convince you to let her visit.

  She wasn’t sure how busy his schedule was or if he’d want to put off seeing her awhile longer, so Eden set her phone aside. She figured she’d have to wait at least a couple of minutes for him to respond. But he texted her back instantly.

  Gray Mare in twenty was his response.

  The Gray Mare was the only bar in town and was just up the street from her house. It was an Old West–style saloon, and it wasn’t unusual for them to go there since Nico’s brother’s girlfriend owned the place. But Eden hoped he hadn’t picked the location because he needed to drown his sorrows. If so, it wouldn’t take long. Nico was a lightweight when it came to liquor. But his speedy response told her that he was anxious to talk to her.

  Eden tried not to wince about that.

  Nico was no doubt ready to apologize for that kiss and ask her if they could figure out a way to cram everything back into the Pandora’s box they’d opened. And she supposed she should agree to it and pretend the kiss never happened.

  But what if she didn’t want to agree?

  What if she wanted that kiss to lead to more kisses and maybe even sex? And it wasn’t as if she had no carnal knowledge whatsoever of Nico. Well, she had visual carnal knowledge anyway.

  Once when Damien and she had been sixteen or so and on a double date with Nico and Sandy Kellerman, Damien had driven them to a popular make-out spot by the creek. Damien and she had been in the second base stage. Lots of French-kissing and touching through the clothes. In other words, no chance of sex happening, which meant it would be the same for Nico and Sandy. Nico had almost certainly been the only nonvirgin in the car that night, and since none of them would want an audience for their de-virgining, it was going to stay that way.

  During their making out, Eden had glanced in the backseat at Nico and Sandy. Lots of French-kissing going on there, too, but then she’d seen something that branded itself into her memory.

  Nico had had an erection.

  Hard to miss since it strained like a baseball bat against his zipper. The perfect outline of it. And then while his mouth had been occupied with Sandy’s, he’d slid his hand down into the waist of his faded jeans to give himself an adjustment. Moving that bat to the side, probably so he’d be more comfortable. Oh, but it had given Eden a
moment to remember.

  And remember.

  Even years later, she could still see his hand disappear into his jeans. Could feel the way it’d caused her pulse to skitter when she thought about what he’d touched. Most women wouldn’t have felt a heated flush or gotten a skittery pulse, but for some strange reason, both had happened to Eden.

  And still happened when she thought about that night.

  She figured it had been memorable for all parties, too, because as she’d shifted in the seat to get an even-better look at Nico, her foot had landed against the horn. It’d been loud, too. So loud that it’d caused curses and shouts from others making out in the vehicles around them.

  Despite the horn interruption, the image of Nico was still strong in her head, and it gave her another round of tingles as she stepped outside to start her short walk to the bar. Of course, the sticky humid heat hit her at once and pulled her out of her thoughts, but Eden forced her mind back to the what if.

  Nico and she were adults and actually had stuff in common. Some stuff, anyway. Similar tastes in music and books. Hardly a foundation for a relationship, but that and the newfound attraction were more than enough to have an affair. Then, maybe they could do a Pandora’s box restuffing and still be friends.

  That was pretty much a best-case scenario since Nico didn’t do long-term.

  She stepped into the bar, thankful for the cool AC that immediately spilled over her. Thankful, too, for the friendly greeting.

  “Hey there, Eden,” the owner, Cleo Delaney, called out.

  Cleo was behind the bar, serving up drafts to two ranch hands seated in front of her. She gave Eden a smile and lifted her finger in a “be with you in a sec” gesture. Eden nodded, glanced around but didn’t see Nico.

  “Nico’s not here,” Cleo said, coming out from the bar to give Eden a hug. They’d known each other for years but had only recently renewed their friendship after Cleo had moved back to Coldwater. That move had been coupled with Cleo buying the Gray Mare and getting engaged to Nico’s hunky brother, Judd.