Carly Phillips - Hot Stuff

"What's wrong?" Annabelle asked, joining him. "Did your favorite horse lose an important race?"

"I'm losing something," he muttered cryptically.

She narrowed her gaze. "What's going on with you?" She placed a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"What makes you think something's wrong?"

"You're crankier than usual for one thing."

He snorted. "And Lola's not?"

"We aren't talking about Lola, and it's not Lola I'm worried about. It's you."

"I'm fine." He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, defiant and angry.

"Bull," she said, walking over to his chair and staring him in the eye. "You're keeping something from me. That I can handle. I'll figure it out soon enough. But you're being mean and nasty to Lola and I'm not going to stand for it."

"Damn women. You always stick together."

She pursed her lips tight. "This isn't a gender thing. By siding with Lola, I'm siding with you. She's good for you and I don't want to see you drive her away. You need her."

"I don't-"

Annabelle waved away his final words with a sweep of her hand. "Be careful what you wish for or you'll end up alone," she said, voicing her biggest fear.

Except in this case she wasn't projecting. Uncle Yank's bad behavior threatened the one person who'd kept him sane all these years. She didn't want him to suffer.

But he remained stubbornly silent. "Okay, if you don't want to talk about it, we won't." She pulled a bowl from the cabinet, Special K from the pantry, and skim milk from the refrigerator and proceeded to make herself breakfast. "Want some?" she asked him.

He shook his head. "I had coffee."

She glanced at the full mug in his hand and the empty canister on the table with the word Salt inscribed on it. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, wondering whether to mention his error or not.

Finally she said, "Did you pour salt in by mistake?"

"It's not my fault the damn stuff is side by side on the counter," he said defensively and glanced away not meeting her gaze.

She frowned and without further discussion, made him a fresh cup of coffee without being asked. Then she settled in to eat her now soggy cereal.

The two of them ate in silence. Neither Vaughn nor Lola showed up for breakfast. Annabelle didn't take Vaughn's absence personally since she'd snuck out on him. She refrained from touching her lips, which she imagined still tingled from his kiss. He was such a mix of contradictions. He wouldn't touch her with her uncle under the same roof, but he let her stay in his bed, in her mind, a more intimate act than something purely physical. Yet with desire flooding her body from being near him, she hadn't been able to help but test him with the kiss, which had led to so much more.

Even now her body vibrated with unslaked need, but she didn't mind. Just knowing she could affect the great Brandon Vaughn on any level gave her immense satisfaction, she thought, curling her hand around her coffee cup, and revisiting their morning in bed in her mind.

An hour later, Uncle Yank had volunteered to take Boris for a walk and Annabelle used the opportunity to call her sisters from the privacy of her room. She caught Sophie on her cell phone as she was getting out of a taxi on her way to a breakfast meeting. Sophie said she hadn't noticed anything unusual about Uncle Yank, but then she'd been so busy she hadn't been focused on anything but business, she'd admitted with a touch of guilt in her voice. Same answer when Annabelle had spoken with Micki.

But causing guilt hadn't been Annabelle's intention. She was equally busy, equally absorbed with business and Vaughn. She didn't blame her sisters for their distraction. But between this unexpected visit and Lola's drastic change in appearance, Annabelle just wanted to understand what was going on with the man who'd raised them. So she and her sisters had agreed to sit Uncle Yank down at the upcoming family party and find out once and for all.

VAUGHN HEADED to his gym downstairs, the one place in his home where he was guaranteed to be alone. No phone calls from parents trying to reach him, no animals begging for attention, no Annabelle guaranteed to distract him, and no bickering Yank and Lola needing him to referee. Or so he thought.

He walked into the partially mirrored room and caught sight of Yank in the reflection. He turned in the other man's direction. "What're you doing here?"

Yank shrugged. "Same as you, I suspect. Want to get away from animals and women. Not necessarily in that order."

Vaughn chuckled. "Okay, I admit to thinking something along those lines. Is Lola making you insane?"

He snorted. "Does a bear-"

"Don't even say it," Vaughn muttered. He sat down on the padded seat of the bench press and resigned himself to working his jaw not his muscles. "I'm going to pry," he said, warning the other man.

"Figures."

"Why aren't you interested in Lola? Not only is she beautiful, but she's as loyal to you and your nieces as they come. She's stuck with your obnoxious personality all these years, and she obviously loves you. Enough to completely alter her appearance to get your attention. So either there's just no attraction, which frankly I don't buy, or you're scared to death after all these years as a single man. The latter gets my vote." Vaughn shot Yank a pointed stare and waited for the older man to tell him to mind his own goddamn business.

"Hell, you think I don't know how she feels? And I'd be blind not to appreciate how she looked before and after this dumbass transformation." Yank burst out in what could only be described as a guffaw of laughter. "I'd have to be blind, get it?"

Vaughn shook his head. At least Yank still had his sense of humor. "Well you're not blind yet, so what gives?"

Yank kicked at an old ball Vaughn kept in the room. It hit the far wall and rolled back. He repeated the distracting motion while he talked. "Did you know Lola and I had an affair once?"

Vaughn's eyes opened wide in shock. He knew this because his head jerked up at the same time and he caught his stunned expression in the mirrored wall. "You and Lola?" he asked, completely taken off guard.

He laughed. "Yeah. Right before the girls' parents died and they came to live with me. Man, we were hot for each other."

Vaughn groaned. "That was probably more information than I wanted to know," he muttered.

Yank scowled at him. "My point is, of course I appreciate who and what she is."

Vaughn doubted any of the nieces knew about the couple's past and wondered how they'd feel if they learned the truth. They'd probably applaud.

"So what happened?" Vaughn asked. "My first guess would be that she came to her senses, but if that were the case she wouldn't have stuck by you all these years and wouldn't be flaunting her, uh-assets, at you now."

Yank rolled his eyes as if Vaughn were an idiot. "The girls happened and I couldn't split my focus."

This time it was Vaughn's turn to laugh. "Give me a break. You were the legendary womanizer in your day. The girls may have limited where you could do things, but I doubt they slowed you down," he said chuckling.

"Yeah well, I'd never felt about anyone the way I felt about Lola.''

Vaughn nodded, understanding completely. "And it scared you," he guessed, mainly because he was in that same sorry state himself.

"Hell yes. Lola was a bright, beautiful woman who deserved a hell of a lot better than a man like me.

"Don't you think that was her decision to make?" Vaughn asked of Lola.

Ball forgotten, Yank leaned back against the wall. "Well, this is all hindsight, you know? All I knew then was, I was suddenly a guardian of three girls who wore panties with bows on their butts and had big, sad eyes. That scared me spitless. Add a woman ready to make us a family-" He shook his head. "I couldn't handle it back then."