Night with Sole Regret

TOUCH ME XXVII

“You need to get used to loud music for tonight,” he told her as he cranked up the tunes and then tugged her into his arms.

That was probably true, but she wasn’t sure how deep, passionate kisses—the ones they were sharing—were necessary to acclimate her to metal. They did have her horny, however, and feeling brave. Brave enough to whisper her newest fantasy in Owen’s ear. He groaned.

“You should have told me in the hotel, where I was in the position to do something about it.”

“Next time,” she murmured.

He grinned. “Next time,” he agreed. And he sank his hands into her mass of hair so he could pull it, as she’d fantasized, while he suckled and kissed her neck.

The car pulled into Jenna’s driveway, and Caitlyn jerked away from Owen to try to compose herself before she faced the limo driver. She was incredibly grateful that her tweed jacket concealed her aroused n*****s, though it did nothing to hide her kiss-swollen lips or the tousled condition of her hair. But the driver didn’t even spare her a glance as he opened the door. She decided he was used to averting his gaze when couples rode in his car.

Caitlyn left Owen to wait in the back seat while she hurried to collect a few things. He’d insisted that if they wanted to ride on the bus, she’d have to hurry. She was a bit nervous about that, actually. She’d prefer to take the limo to Houston, but assumed the expense would be astronomical. The car and driver had been leased for the band’s use, but only for their stay in San Antonio.

Caitlyn let herself into the house using the key Jenna had given her.

“There you are,” Jenna said. “Out all night getting laid. I’m surprised you can still walk.”

Caitlyn whirled around, her hand over chest, her heart thudding against her palm. She took a deep breath. “You scared the s**t out of me. I thought you would have left for work by now.”

“I called in sick. I thought we could go to the salon and have a mani-pedi, grab some margaritas with a side of lunch while you tell me all about the cute guy you spent the night with, then we’ll pick up some dumb romantic comedy that will make Daniel flee from the house in horror and have the place and a gallon of chocolate ice cream all to ourselves.”

Caitlyn’s face fell. “Oh, I sort of told…”

She glanced out at the driveway and at the limo waiting for her. As much as she liked Owen and wanted to spend the day and evening with him, her loyalties had to lie with Jenna. The woman had put up with her during her early college years and all the crazy angst she’d suffered while having an affair with one of her professors. One of her married professors. After trying to talk her out of marrying Charles, Jenna had served as her maid of honor because she’d said she would always be loyal to her friend, even if she didn’t agree with the choices she made.

Caitlyn felt terrible that she even considered spending time with Owen over Jenna.

“I’ll just tell him to go on without me,” Caitlyn said. She couldn’t very well turn down her friend when she’d taken a day off work and made plans to spend it with her.

“Wait,” Jenna said. “He’s here?”

“He’s out waiting in the car. He wanted me to go to Houston with him. But I’d rather spend the day with you.” Caitlyn almost believed her own lie. She would love to spend the day with Jenna, but Owen was new and exciting and as much as she loved Jenna, Jenna was… comfortable.

And suddenly Caitlyn was looking for anything but comfortable.

Jenna ran to the window beside the front door and peered out. “That’s not a car, Caitlyn. It’s a f*****g limousine.”

“Yeah, well…” Caitlyn shrugged.

“Who is this guy? Is he rich?”

“I don’t know. He’s some musician.”

“Like a rapper or something?”

Caitlyn snorted on a laugh. “Not quite. He’s in some metal band. They’re called Sole Regret. He had convinced me to ride the tour bus and hang out with him backstage until his concert tonight, but I’d much rather have great nails and watch a dumb romantic comedy with you.”

“I call bullshit, Caitlyn Marie. You’re going.” She smoothed her light brown hair that always looked sleek and salon-styled. “And while you’re collecting your things, I’m going to introduce myself to your rock star. Is he really cute?”

“If you weren’t madly in love with Daniel, I wouldn’t let you within ten feet of Owen.”

Jenna laughed. “It’s not like I’m going to hump his leg or something.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Do you work tomorrow?”

“Nope.”

“Can we do the girl thing then?”

“Of course.” Jenna gave her a quick squeeze. “I’m just so glad to see you smiling again.”

“Am I smiling?”

“Like you’ve been hitting the Prozac a little too hard, honey. Good for you. Why don’t you borrow something from my closet?” Jenna suggested. “You dress like my grandmother.”

“Owen likes the way I dress.”

“I highly doubt that. Now I’m going out to meet the man who put that smile on your face, while you change into something a little less you. ”

“Don’t tell him any embarrassing stories about me!” Caitlyn called after her.

Jenna closed the door securely behind herself on her way out. She was totally going to tell Owen all sorts of embarrassing stories about her, Caitlyn just knew she would. Caitlyn rushed to collect her things.

In the guest room, she upended her overnight bag in the center of her borrowed bed and looked for something to wear to a rock concert. Jenna was totally right—she couldn’t be seen someplace cool dressed in any of her clothes. She shoved a pair of twill weave slacks and a matching emerald-green sweater into the bottom of her bag and then helped herself to Jenna’s closet. Most of Jenna’s clothes would be too small for Caitlyn’s rounder backside, but one of her flirty dresses should fit. Was she daring enough to wear red? Yesterday Caitlyn would have said no, but today she was feeling particularly daring. And sexy. All thanks to Owen.

She wasn’t quite daring enough to wear the dress during the day, so she added it to her bag to change into later. Then she filched a pair of red heels from Jenna’s massive shoe collection, but she refused to borrow Jenna’s underwear. Caitlyn’s cartoon cow panties would have to do. Why had she bought those novelty panties in the first place? Owen had seemed to like the fuchsia pair with the sheep; how would he feel about turquoise with a cross-eyed cow?

Would he insist on making her saturate them with her arousal?

Oh lord, she was going to embarrass herself for sure.

Next time she saw Owen, she promised herself that she’d wear sexy underwear for him.

If there was a next time. She was starting to believe there might be a lot of next times.

After tossing her toiletries and make-up into her overnight bag, Caitlyn yanked the zipper shut and went to rescue Owen—and her own reputation—from Jenna’s clutches.

As expected, Jenna had Owen in stitches. They were standing next to the car, Owen leaning against the door so he didn’t collapse in hysterics and Jenna talking in her typical animated fashion. Caitlyn could only guess what her friend had been telling him. Probably about the time she’d forced Caitlyn to go zip-lining and she’d gotten stuck over a canyon. Caitlyn had been fascinated by the physics of the exercise and had determined the effectiveness of hand-braking via experimentation. Her experiment had been a marvelous success—she’d stopped dead in the center of the line—and it had taken her nearly an hour to pull herself, hand over hand, to the nearest station, much to the displeasure of everyone waiting a turn to zoom across the canyon.

“When she fell, she grabbed the nearest guy—by the pants, unfortunately—and we all soon discovered that he was a man who went commando.”

Owen sniggered and rubbed his forehead.

Oh, this was her rollerblading fiasco story. What was next, the “stuck upside-down between two rocks in a kayak” story? Jenna had never gotten it into her head that Caitlyn had the athletic prowess of a common sea slug. While their exploits were adventures for Jenna, those excursions had been exercises in injury and humiliation for Caitlyn. But she went because she knew how much Jenna enjoyed the not-so-great outdoors. And Jenna sometimes accompanied Caitlyn to science fiction conventions because she knew how much Caitlyn enjoyed pretending she was from space. Caitlyn pinked at her thoughts. She hoped Jenna hadn’t told Owen that she liked to dress up as Princess Leia on occasion. She kept the fake-braid earmuffs in the top drawer of her dresser at home.