Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
K elli spent the next morning lounging by the pool, alternately paging through Mac’s questionnaire and fretting about the night before.
What the hell had she been thinking?
First the groping in the car. Then the situation in the closet. Then, the orgasm in the restaurant.
Was she crazy?
You came here hoping to tease him, her subconscious reminded her. To have fun with the guy you’ve been crushing on for years, but never really knew. To make him lose his mind with lust.
It seemed like Mac had other ideas. Who was really doing the teasing here? Was it a control thing for him, or something else?
She remembered the way he’d touched her in the car, so confident and purposeful.
She thought about the way he moaned and moved against her in the closet, the feel of his hot skin against her nipples, the ripple of muscle hard against her own softness.
She remembered his fingers inside her, his thumb moving like he knew the location of every nerve in her body.
Three of the hottest sexual encounters of your life, and you haven’t even slept with him.
Sighing, Kelli set the paperwork aside and picked up her phone. She glanced around the pool, making sure none of the household staff was nearby. Maria had gone into town. Hank and Brian were holed up in the office, though they kept checking on her every few minutes. The two bodyguards Mac had assigned to watch her stood out of earshot on opposite sides of the patio. She wasn’t entirely sure they spoke English anyway, so she punched in the number for Sheri and waited.
“Hey, girl!” Sheri answered on the first ring. “How’s everything going with Operation Seduce My Jerk Brother?”
Kelli crossed her legs on the chaise, grateful for the warmth in her friend’s voice. “For a military brat, you’re surprisingly terrible at coming up with names for covert operations.”
“Give me a break. I’m the mother of two eight-month-old twins and the fiancée of the hottest guy on the planet. I slept three hours last night and my brain is like a shriveled raisin. So things are going well?”
“Great,” Kelli said a little too brightly. “I’m sweet, demure, delicate, and classy.”
“In other words, totally full of crap.”
“Pretty much.” She smiled to herself, thinking demure probably didn’t describe her behavior in the closet last night, nor was her performance at the restaurant particularly classy. She cleared her throat and forced herself to stay with the conversation. “Mac saved me from a carjacker yesterday.”
“What?”
She glanced toward the bodyguards, hesitating for an instant. Mac had said the attack had nothing to do with Zapata, so it should be safe to talk about. She leaned back against the chaise and proceeded to share the story, wrapping up with a dramatic description of the cantaloupe-covered wedding gown and Mac crouched on the hood of the car looking like a fruit-wielding assassin.
“Holy shit,” Sheri said. “You could have been killed.”
“No I couldn’t. Mac was watching out for me.” She was taken aback by the certainty in her own voice. “He takes the protector thing pretty seriously.”
“Too seriously, if you want my opinion.”
“How do you mean?”
“My brother has spent his whole life making himself an emotional iceberg so his feelings don’t get in the way of his ability to protect people. It’s kind of an art form with him.”
“Beats the hell out of papier-maché,” Kelli said, shifting a little in her lounge chair as she filed that insight away in her mental Rolodex. “Anyway, things are going well. Great, I mean. Really great. Mac is amazing.”
God, she sounded like an idiot. On the other end of the line, Sheri was quiet.
“You’re not falling in love with him, right?” she asked. “I mean, you’ve always had a thing for my brother, but I thought it was just lust, and?—”
“Don’t worry,” she said, licking her lips and infusing her voice with her normal, lighthearted perkiness. “I only do lust. Not love. That’s why I’m here, right?”
“Right.” Sheri didn’t sound convinced, but she was a good enough friend to let it drop. “Mac called last night. He sounded a little rattled. You must’ve done something to shake up his image of you as sweet, demure, and wholesome?”
Kelli laughed. “I jerked him off in his closet, then let him finger me in a restaurant.”
“That’ll do it. All that within the first forty-eight hours?”
“All that in a two-hour span. I’m nothing if not efficient.”
“And this is why I love you. Well, and because you buy me sex toys for my birthday. Have you slept with him, or is he holding out on you with the full-meal deal?”
“For now I’m stealing fries from his Happy Meal,” Kelli said. “I’m working my way up to demanding the super-sized combo.”
“Atta girl. Just be careful, okay? I don’t want anyone getting hurt here.”
“Please,” Kelli scoffed. “If there were Olympic medals for avoiding emotional attachment, your brother and I would compete for gold.”
“About that, Kel. I know your parents did a number on you, and I don’t blame you for having issues with abandonment, but?—”
“It’s okay, really,” Kelli interrupted, her voice so bright it hurt her ears. “Seriously, I’m fine. So, uh—is the temp vet taking good care of my clinic?”
Sheri didn’t respond right away. Kelli fiddled with the tie on her bikini bottoms, hoping her friend would just let it drop.
“The best,” Sheri said at last. “I checked on him yesterday, just like you asked. All is well.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. I should probably get back to the boys. It was good hearing from you, Kel.”
“You, too. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Stay safe. And don’t fall for my idiot brother.”
“Not a chance.” She hung up hoping like hell that was true.
The last thing she needed was to get attached to someone whose entire existence revolved around avoiding emotional involvement. Wasn’t that a recipe for a broken heart? A woman terrified of abandonment falling for a guy hell-bent on never staying with anyone. Talk about ridiculous.
She pushed all thoughts of emotional entanglement and abandonment out of her mind and spent the rest of the day reviewing Mac’s files. At five, she went upstairs to get changed. She chose an Emilio Pucci dress—strapless, of course, no bra—and a pair of Louboutin nude peep-toe heels that added an extra four inches to her frame. She spritzed on her favorite jasmine perfume, then studied the small stash of jewelry she’d brought with her.
She had a few costume pieces, but none of them looked quite right. She hesitated over the pearl-drop necklace her mother had given her when she’d turned twelve. The necklace had belonged to her grandmother, but Kelli’s mom had added a tiny paw-print charm that left seven-year-old Kelli swooning with delight.
Kelli’s mom had slurred her way through the wedding story as she presented the necklace to her daughter. “Love’s fine and shit, but don’t count on men to give you what you need,” she’d mumbled. “Men leave, you know. Can’t trust them to stick around and take care of you, so you’ve gotta get out there yourself and grab life by the balls.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Considering much of Kelli’s career involved lopping off testicles, she hadn’t strayed too far from the advice. She mulled it over, touching the pearls and the tiny paw-print charm. She took a deep breath and turned from the mirror. She walked downstairs with her heart in her throat, hoping she was adequately prepared to bluff her way through a dinner party with a fake fiancé and a real arms dealer.
“Wow,” Mac said as Kelli descended the stairs. His gaze traveled the length of her legs, the curve of her waist, the bare skin of her shoulders. He reached out to brush the silk hem of the dress.
“Is that chartreuse or aubergine?”
Kelli grinned and let him take her hand at the bottom of the steps, planting a chaste kiss across her knuckles.
“It’s black, goofball,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it cost more than my condo. Thank you.”
“You look incredible. Griz will have a conniption.”
“Griz?”
“Griselda. Zapata’s wife. The one I—uh?—”
“Screwed before you realized you also wanted to screw her husband in a different way?”
“You do have a way with words sometimes.”
“I’ll behave at dinner, I promise.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He led her to the car and handed her inside, opening and closing her door before heading around to the driver’s side.
Once inside, he turned to her. “I wasn’t sure these would go with whatever you chose to wear, but they seem to match your necklace.” He pulled a velvet box out of his jacket and opened it for her. Kelli gasped, reaching out to touch the pearl-drop earrings as her other hand stroked the necklace at her throat.
“Mac, they’re beautiful! How did you?—”
“Lucky guess. I swear I didn’t snoop through your stuff. Not today, anyway.”
“I can’t decide if that’s the creepiest or most romantic thing ever.” She took the box from him and hooked the earrings in place.
“Let’s go with romantically creepy,” Mac said, and started the car. “They look perfect with your necklace.”
“Thank you.”
Once they were on the road, Kelli cleared her throat. “So Zapata and his wife both speak English?”
“Yes. All our conversations will be in English, so you don’t have to worry.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“I noticed. Your Spanish is very good.”
“Thank you. I’ve done volunteer vet work in El Salvador and Guatemala.”
“I know.”
Kelli cleared her throat again.“So tell me about Griselda.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Is she pretty? Smart? Flirty?”
Mac gave her a guarded look, an expression that had become all too familiar to Kelli. “I suppose so. On all counts, I guess. Does it matter?”
“Yes. A real fiancée would be threatened by at least one of those things. Maybe not overtly, but jealousy would rear its head at least a little.”
“Hmm. That makes sense. So you’re deliriously in love with me and leery of my former mistress?”
“And you’re completely smitten with me and blind to her charms.”
Mac smiled tightly and turned onto the highway. “I think we can manage that.”
They chatted easily for the drive from Mac’s place in Todos Santos to Zapata’s place outside San Jose del Cabo. By the time they arrived at the stucco mansion on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, Kelli was beginning to feel relaxed.
Okay, maybe not relaxed. But as calm as she could be, considering she was a fake fiancée in a borrowed dress and too-high heels preparing to meet a vicious arms dealer and his vixen wife. At least she had Mac. And at least she might not have to try all that hard to appear smitten with him. Her lifelong crush had given her plenty of practice.
Mac parked the car in front of an elaborate stucco mansion. Kelli swallowed hard as she looked up at the home, noticing the elaborate brickwork, the staggering ocean views, the armed guards at every corner.
Mac walked around the side of the car and opened her door. Kelli hesitated, feeling nervous all of a sudden. He smiled and offered his arm.
“You’ll do great,” he murmured. “I promise.”
“Any last words of advice?”
“Take my lead. Smile a lot, don’t say much, and try to look as ridiculously in love with me as you can muster.”
“Got it.” She fought the urge to salute and settled for raising one manicured hand for him to grasp. He pulled her gracefully to her feet, and she wobbled a bit on the heels. Mac steadied her, cupping her elbow in one of his large palms. She held tight to his arm and let him lead her to the front door. Her heart clogged her throat as Mac rang the bell, then pulled off his sunglasses as footsteps approached the door.
“Breathe,” Mac whispered.
“Okay.”
“You’ve got this.”
She gave him a weak smile, and Mac smiled back, then squeezed her arm.
She turned back to the door, waiting for a servant to greet them. When the door jerked open, Kelli jumped in surprise. She took two steps back as a petite brunette in a Prada dress cried out, then launched herself into Mac’s arms.
“Oh my God,” the woman sobbed into the front of Mac’s shirt as Mac looked down with alarm. “Something horrible has happened!”
The sight of Griselda sobbing and hysterical sent a rocket of ice down Mac’s spine. He felt the pinch of the shoulder holster holding his pistol beneath his suit jacket, and calculated how quickly he could detach Griz and push both women behind him while drawing the weapon to defend them against whatever waited inside.
Mac rested one hand on Griselda’s back as her arms twisted around his neck and she sobbed into his coat. He shot a look at Kelli, knowing she was probably terrified. She met his eye with a questioning look.
“Go back to the car,” Mac whispered. “Let me assess things here and?—”
“Don’t leave me!” Griselda wailed. “Come quickly, both of you.”
With that, Griz grabbed Mac by one arm, Kelli by the other, and pulled them into the foyer. Mac was on high alert now, his hand reaching for the pistol, his eyes scanning the room for the threat, for a body on the floor, for a hostage situation for?—
“A lizard?”
Mac blinked as Zapata stepped into the room cradling something that looked vaguely like a dinosaur. Judging from the slump of Zapata’s shoulders, it had to weigh fifty pounds. The animal flicked its tongue at Mac, assessing him as though he were a meal.
“An Argentine black and white tegu,” Kelli whispered reverently, her bare arm brushing Mac as she stepped forward. “He’s beautiful.”
“He’s dying; we must take him to the hospital now,” Zapata barked, his accent more pronounced than normal as his eyes made a frantic scan of the guests. “I apologize for dinner, but we must go quickly.”
Mac looked at Kelli, who was studying the large reptile with professional calmness. He felt a surge of pride as he touched her arm.
“I may not have mentioned it, Senor Zapata,” Mac said. “But my fiancée is a veterinarian.”
The arms dealer looked at Kelli with wide eyes. “This is true? Dios mío , you will look at Felix?”
“Of course,” Kelli said, setting her purse on a bench beside the door and taking a step forward. “What seems to be the problem?”
“His manhood,” Griselda wailed. “It has exploded.”
Mac winced as Zapata angled the large lizard to display something that did indeed look like an exploded manhood.
“Holy shit,” Mac murmured. “His dick blew up. They probably didn’t cover that one in vet school?”
“Of course they did, sweetie,” Kelli replied, looking bizarrely calm. “It’s a prolapsed hemipenis, very common in reptiles.”
All three pairs of eyes swung to her, looking baffled. “A hemi-what?” Mac asked.
Kelli was already crouching low, inspecting the lizard from beneath. “A hemipenis or hemipene. Many kinds of reptiles have not one, but two intromittent sex organs everted for reproduction via erectile tissue. The hemipene is one half of the paired, erectile, copulatory organ protruded through the cloaca.”
Mac blinked, as distracted by the view down the front of Kelli’s dress as he was by the words coming from her mouth. “Lizards have two penises?”
“Sure, so do snakes, sharks, koalas, kangaroos—well, technically the marsupials have a bifurcated penis, which is more like one penis that splits into two.” She looked up at their dumbstruck hosts from her position on the floor at their feet. “Have you had him long?”
“Only a few weeks,” Zapata said. “He was a gift from a collector. Is he dying?”
“No, but we need to treat him. He’s not going to be able to retract the organ on his own. Where is your bathroom?”
Griselda touched a hand to her throat and sniffed loudly. “There’s a powder room down that hallway and to the left.”
“Not a powder room, a bathroom. With a bathtub.” Kelli stood up and looked at Griselda. “I need you to bring me sugar and some mineral oil. If you don’t have mineral oil, we can use a sexual lubricant like KY Jelly, if you have it.”
Griselda blinked, then nodded. “The kind that warms when you blow on it?”
“I don’t think Felix is too picky about that.” Kelli turned to Zapata. “Let’s bring him into the bathroom and start running a warm bath. Have you bathed him before?”
Zapata shook his head, looking nothing like the ruthless arms dealer Mac knew him to be. “I did not know I needed to.”
“It’s okay. I just wanted to know how he tolerates water. Most tegus are fond of it, especially if we run the water a bit warm. Mac, would you grab my purse? There’s a little medical kit I need.”
Mac stared, dumbfounded. “You brought a medical kit to dinner?”
“I never leave home without it. Come, let’s get to work.”
Mac brought up the rear, feeling ridiculous holding a beaded purse and marching behind his fake fiancée, his ex-girlfriend, and notorious arms dealer carrying a double-dicked lizard. Griselda fell into step beside her husband carrying a five-pound bag of sugar and a half-used tube of KY Jelly.
How the hell did I end up here? Mac wondered, as they paraded down the hall.
By the time he reached the bathroom, Kelli was already kicking off her shoes. She climbed into the tub, running water over her bare feet as she tested the temperature with her fingers. Mac resisted the urge to admire her butt as she bent down to plug the tub.
“This bathtub, it was just cleaned,” Griselda offered helpfully.
Beside her, Zapata was cooing something unintelligible into the lizard’s ear. Did lizards have ears? Mac wasn’t sure, and obviously wasn’t too familiar with the anatomy of reptiles.
Two penises? Holy shit.
“May I have the sugar, please?” Kelli asked, stepping out of the tub.
Griselda handed her the bag without comment, and Kelli dumped a generous amount into the tub and swished it around with her hand. Then she held out her arms. “May I please have Felix?”
Zapata eyed her with surprised. “He is very heavy, be careful.”
Kelli gave him a smile. “I do this sort of thing all the time.”
Mac nodded trying to look like a man accustomed to seeing his beautiful fiancée fixing lizard penises in a bathtub. “First you perform dog surgery in a wedding gown, and now you’re fixing lizard dicks in a cocktail dress.”
“It is a beautiful dress,” Griselda said earnestly.
“Thank you,” Kelli said, wrapping her arms around the lizard and pulling him to her chest. “Mac helped me choose it last night.”
She smiled at Mac, a flicker of mischief in her eye as she held the massive lizard against her breasts. She stepped toward the sugar bath, cooing to the creature as she moved. “Here we go, big guy. We’ll get that pork sword back in place in no time.”
The lizard flicked its tongue and gave Mac a strangely smug look. Mac bent down so he was eye level with Felix. “Don’t get too comfortable, buddy. She’s going home with me.”
Kelli smiled and lowered the animal into the water. It was only a couple inches deep and liberally laced with sugar. Mac expected Felix to thrash or fight, but he seemed to relax at once.
“What does the sugar water do?” Griselda asked.
“It’s one way to reduce the prolapse,” Kelli said, kneeling beside the tub and rubbing a handful of sugar against the creature’s underside. “Right now, it’s too swollen to be pulled back into his body where it belongs.”
“And the, uh—” Mac glanced at the tube of KY Jelly in Griselda’s hand. He looked away fast, not certain what etiquette called for when one’s ex-girlfriend stood gripping a half-used tube of sexual lubricant in the presence of her arms dealer husband and her ex-lover’s fake fiancée.
“The lubricant will allow me to slip the prolapsed hemipene back in place,” Kelli replied. “Then I’ll use a purse-string suture to tighten the opening enough to hold both organs inside.”
“And you believe he will live?” Zapata asked.
“Odds are very good, yes,” Kelli said. “There doesn’t appear to be any infection, and we’re catching it in time. Most male tegus copulate with the penis on the right, so there’s a good chance he could still reproduce if you’d planned on doing that.”
“Good news, buddy,” Mac told the lizard, resting a hand on Kelli’s shoulder. He felt stupidly proud, which was ridiculous. He hadn’t done anything.
He looked at Zapata, who wore a bewildered expression completely unlike anything Mac had seen in his prior meetings with the man. The guy made multimillion dollar arms deals with terrorists and ordered hits on his enemies, but he seemed completely undone by the lizard crisis.
Zapata looked at him and nodded. “Thank you. Both of you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” He shook Mac’s hand with ferocious warmth.
“It’s no problem,” Kelli called, her dress dragging in the water as she knelt to maneuver the lizard. “That’s a nice boy, Felix. Does that feel good?”
“Can I answer for him?” Mac offered.
“He looks happier already,” Zapata said. “Doesn’t he look happy?”
The lizard flicked his tongue as Kelli probed his underside, and Mac nodded. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Can I get anyone a glass of wine?” Griz called. “Perhaps a cocktail.”
“Cocktail,” Kelli replied dodging Felix’s tail as he thrashed it. “Maybe later.”
Felix thrashed his tail again, splashing sugar water down the front of Kelli’s dress. She didn’t move, but stroked his head to calm him. Mac moved into place beside Zapata, and they all stood watching Kelli and the lizard.
“Okay, big boy,” she cooed. “I just need to touch your beef bayonet again.”
“That is the medical term?” Zapata asked.
“Should this be turning me on?” Mac asked.
“Shhh!” Griz ordered. “Let her work.”
“Very nice,” Kelli murmured, ignoring them all. “The swelling is already going down.”
“This really shouldn’t be hot,” Mac murmured.
“Be strong, Felix,” Zapata coached. “?Fuerte!”
“Shhh!” Kelli kept working, her expression serene and patient.
Zapata looked at Mac and shook his head in wonder. “Your bride—she is amazing. I had no idea.”
“She is amazing,” Mac replied, looking back at her.
And I had no idea, either .
“I’m going to give him a few more minutes to soak,” Kelli said. “If you’re at all squeamish, you might not want to stick around for the next part. The suturing process isn’t pretty.”
Griselda paled at that and glanced at her husband. “Come. Let us check on dinner and find something for Ms. Landers to change into when she is finished.”
“Thank you, that would be lovely,” Kelli said. “Mac? Would you mind sticking around and giving me a hand?”
He stooped down beside her, barely noticing as he knelt in a puddle of water. “Fondling a lizard in a bathtub full of sugar water,” he murmured. “Not how I pictured this night going.”
Kelli grinned. “Your life with me is full of surprises.”
“Don’t I know it,” he replied, and braced himself to give a lizard a handjob.