Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“So what did he say then?” Liza asked.
Gianna sighed. “He accused me of being a control freak. Me! Can you believe it?”
Keeley and Liza exchanged a quick glance, but neither of them said a word. Because Gianna’s picture was probably in the dictionary next to the words “control freak.”
Gianna had texted them on a group thread this morning, upset about a fight she’d had with Sam before he’d left for work.
A few weeks ago—just after Penny’s birthday party—she, Liza, Jess, Gianna, and Penny had started a group text that Liza had dubbed “Sisters from Other Misters,” and Keeley couldn’t recall a single day that had gone by since without someone sending a message or meme to the thread.
After her parents’ death, Keeley’s life had become a bit—okay, a lot—guy heavy, as more often than not, her childhood home was filled with Kayden and his friends. Not in a frat house way, but more in a Kayden-is-in-over-his-head-and-we’re-all-pitching-in-to-help-raise-the-girl-cub way.
She’d had a bunch of girlfriends in high school, but those friendships had faded, as they often do with distance, time, and a lack of anything in common other than Algebra II.
Upon returning home after college, she’d turned acquaintances—Gianna and Liza—into real, true friends.
And over the past year, they’d included Jess and Penny in their merry band.
“It sounds like it was a nasty fight,” Keeley observed.
“They all are lately,” Gianna replied sadly. Then she picked up her margarita. “But I don’t want to talk about Sam tonight.”
Liza lifted her glass in a toast. “Good for you. Tonight is girls’ night out. We’re going to get half-lit on margaritas, dance until our feet fall off, and man-bash with reckless abandon.”
“Hear, hear,” Gianna said, tapping her glass against Liza’s.
Keeley followed suit, though she wasn’t as on board with the man-bashing as much as she normally would have been. Before this month, she would have been leading the charge, declaring all men assholes and idiots, thanks to her shitty dating history. But tonight…she wasn’t feeling it.
And it was all because of those kisses last night.
She’d gone to bed cursing herself for basically daring Rafe and Gio to kiss her good night. Part of her had actually expected them to put the kibosh on those kisses. After all, she’d flirted with them for years, and they’d never once taken the bait.
She’d brushed off Gio’s first kiss as sympathy the night of the storm, chalking it up to a consolation prize after she’d gotten freaked out by the lightning, then bitched about her long list of failed dates.
She knew Gio had a soft spot for her, especially since her parents died, and she assumed it was because he’d lost his mother when he was young as well.
That compassion, combined with his charming bad boy, had prompted the kiss that night. She was certain of it.
The second kiss had been a little harder to brush off, but not really.
Because once again, she’d been hurt by Joel.
Gio and Rafe were born protectors, so her vulnerability had been the equivalent of her waving a red flag in their faces.
Gio responded by giving her a kiss, and Rafe, one of his amazing, warm bear hugs.
But last night… Fuck…last night.
She didn’t have a clue what to make of that.
She could have credited Gio’s third kiss to the fact the two of them were a bit tipsy after splitting a couple pitchers of beer, though that felt like a weak excuse at best. And no matter how many times he told her the kisses didn’t meaning anything, that didn’t help her keep the crush she’d always harbored for him at bay.
God. She hated the word crush. It made her feel like a kid, when the truth was, what she felt for Gio—and Rafe—went far beyond that.
Especially now that she’d experienced Rafe’s kiss.
Jesus. Christ.
Rafe…her quiet, somewhat repressed new boss…had a dark and delicious side. No man had ever kissed her with that much…raw masculinity. Her lips were still tingling.
She glanced across the room and spotted Rafe, Gio, and Luca at the bar, talking to the bartender, their backs to her. She’d purposely told them she was coming to Eclectic tonight because she wanted to see if they’d follow.
After an hour had passed and they hadn’t shown up, she’d been relieved. Because it proved she’d been right. The kisses meant nothing.
Oh, fuck that. Who was she kidding?
She’d been disappointed as hell. Something she knew was completely unwise.
Because despite the kisses, Rafe and Gio hadn’t said a damn thing that indicated they didn’t still see her as Kayden’s little sister.
The date-crashing was Moretti Protectiveness 101, and nothing she hadn’t experienced before from her brother and other various males in the group.
Though usually, she could admit, it was just Kayden and Liza’s brother, Aldo, leading that particular charge. The other guys just made an appearance if they happened to be out with her brother on whatever night he decided she was with the wrong man.
Now, she wasn’t sure what to think. Because Rafe and Gio had arrived a few minutes earlier, each of them giving her a simple, single nod of the head, acknowledging they’d seen her, before heading straight to the bar.
Her foolish heart had skipped twenty beats and was now racing at what had to be an unhealthy pace.
“Keeley,” Liza said in a tone that told her it wasn’t the first time her friend had called her name.
“Sorry. Daydreaming. What were you saying?” Keeley asked.
Liza’s eyes narrowed. “I was going to see if you wanted to dance, but now I’d rather know what you’re daydreaming about.”
All the truth serum in the world wouldn’t drag that information out of Keeley because she could already imagine the pitying looks and “oh Keeleys” she’d get from her friends if they found out she was interested in two men who would forever view her as Kayden’s little sister and never as a woman they would date.
Keeley paused.
Because that was the moment she realized she’d stopped crushing on Gio or Rafe.
When she thought of them now…she dreamed about both men, together, at the same time.
They’d had a ménage before. That was the one piece of information she’d played over and over last night because…
God…because she wanted that. With them. Desperately.
Damn Jess and her idyllic happily ever after with Tony and Rhys!
“I don’t think you want to know,” Keeley said, trying to buy time until she could come up with a lie.
Liza brightened up. “Of course I do.”
Keeley glanced around the nightclub, the answer appearing just in the nick of time. “Work.”
Liza scowled. “Work?”
“Yeah. This is my first time just hanging out at Eclectic as Marketing Director of Baros Corporation. I keep looking around thinking of different ways to promote it. What do you think of theme nights?”
Liza groaned. “No. No boyfriend talk. No work talk. When did the two of you forget how to have fun? Come on. We’re dancing.”
The three of them hopped up from the table, chiseling a spot for themselves on the dance floor. Keeley closed her eyes, shut down all the sexy fantasies that had been keeping her awake nights, and gave herself up to the music.
Rafe glanced at the dance floor, aware Gio’s attention had been drawn there as well.
“You ready for the big move?” Luca asked them.
Rafe forced himself to stop staring at Keeley and focused his attention on Gio’s twin brother.
They hadn’t intended to come out tonight at all.
Gio had packing to do, and Rafe, despite his progress, was still buried in a mountain of paperwork.
Those adulting reasons fell away the instant Keeley informed them it was girls’ night out.
She’d texted them the information, letting them know they could take the night off from date-crashing.
Then she’d added the fact that she would be perfectly safe since they’d elected to come here… to Rafe’s nightclub.
He wasn’t sure why she’d thought that would set their minds at ease.
There were still too many sharks circling their prey, something Keeley and her friends appeared to be oblivious to.
Rafe had counted no fewer than eight men stealing glances at their table as they’d ordered yet another pitcher of margaritas.
And right now—he peeked over at the dance floor again—there were three or four men jockeying for position, ready to break into the girls’ circle.
Rafe scowled, then remembered Luca had asked a question. Problem was, he couldn’t remember what he’d asked.
“We’re ready. I’m nearly all packed. Just a few more things to box up,” Gio replied, but unlike Rafe, he wasn’t even attempting to pretend his interest was anywhere other than exactly where it was—homed in on Keeley, like she was a target in his sites.
“Worried about the girls?” Luca asked, his gaze following Gio’s to the dance floor.
“I don’t like the look of that guy in the black shirt trying to weasel his way closer.”
Luca studied the man for a second, then shrugged. “He looks like every other guy out there. And you have to admit, if it wasn’t Liza, Gianna, and Kiwi, we’d probably be out there, trying to score a dance with them as well. They look hot tonight.”
Gio shrugged in response to Luca’s comment but didn’t look away from the women.
Nope. Scratch that. His best friend wasn’t looking away from Keeley.
And leave it to Luca to call a spade a spade.
Gio’s twin was a straight shooter, someone who never minced words.
He was right. Perhaps Rafe was biased, but he was certain Keeley and her two girlfriends were the most beautiful women in the nightclub.
None of them wore overly provocative clothing, though Keeley’s minidress was showing enough of her trim thighs that Rafe was doomed to sit here with a damn hard-on, like some teenaged boy with zero self-control.
Something had to give. Because he was getting in way over his head.