Bare Pleasures. Lindsay Evans

love and support of my family!” Lola grinned and threw her arms wide, nearly splashing the person closest to her with champagne. “I love you all so much!” Her twin, Leo, pushed through the crowd to hug her, his height and wide shoulders just about hiding her from everyone. He kissed her noisily on the cheek, smiling, to the sound of loud whistles and applause.

      Lex grinned, proud of how his family stood with and helped each other. All his brothers and sisters were there to celebrate with Lola. Yeah. She was lucky. They were all fortunate to have each other. An elbow bumped into his and he turned, expecting Kingsley, but it wasn’t his brother who he saw. His breath hitched.

      No. It can’t be her.

      The woman who’d caught his attention turned toward the back of the room, but from just the shape of her cheek and chin, the long and narrow lines of her body he knew who it was. Panic dropped, swift and nauseating, into his belly. He stared at the woman, noting the changes from the last time they’d been in the same room. Her face leaner, her clothes more sophisticated and expensive. When she didn’t turn back to face him, he began to breathe a little easier.

      “You okay, Lex?” Kingsley was suddenly at his side and lightly squeezing his arm. “You look a little gray.”

      Gray? He felt like all the blood in his body had dropped to his feet, leaving him cold and shaking.

      “I’m good.” He threw what he hoped was a reassuring smile his brother’s way and then turned again to the front of the room, slowing down his breathing. Although he was positive the woman saw him, she never acknowledged him. Maybe she didn’t realize who he was. Ten years was a long time. He’d changed a lot since then. His face was thinner, his body less obviously muscular. He’d even grown a couple of inches since those days of being an eighteen-year-old asshole. He took another breath.

      “Everything is fine,” he said, hoping to convince himself.

      When Lola finished her sweet, if disjointed, speech, Lex pushed his way through the crowd to congratulate her. She squealed when she saw him, a tiny whirlwind, and latched her arms around his waist, laughing. Lola smelled like champagne and whipped cream from the bonbons she’d insisted on serving. “I’m so glad you made it! I thought you’d be working again.”

      Lex had been stuck in front of his computers, either at the office or at home, for most of the past few weeks. The project—fine-tuning a program for national law enforcement to help track, capture and prosecute human traffickers—took up more of his time than he’d initially planned. It kept him from at least one family dinner—he wasn’t sure his mother would ever forgive him—and had him regularly estranged from his bed a few nights a week. It was still a work in progress, important work, but there was no way he’d miss Lola’s first solo show.

      “I am working,” Lex said. “It’s all up here.” He tapped his forehead. “I’m great at multitasking.”

      She clung to his arm, smiling wide to reveal her slightly crooked bottom teeth. “Hmm. That’s why you’re the smart brother.”

      “Oh, you do love me.” He laughed. Three of their brothers were self-made millionaires and one was on the fast track to NASA. “Get back to your adoring public.” He playfully pinched her side and she fell into his chest with an attack of the giggles. “Kingsley and I are waiting to buy you a drink after this is over.” He could sense his brother just behind him.

      “Okay. But don’t run off with some skank before then.” She wagged a finger at them both. “Where are these skanks she’s talking about?” Kingsley asked, his eyes crinkling with laughter. “It’d be nice to run into a couple right now. I’d even handle your share since you’re on lockdown.”

      Lex made sure to jab a sharp elbow into his brother’s side as he passed him and headed to the other end of the gallery where their parents stood together.

      “That was rude,” Kingsley said loud enough for half the gallery to hear.

      Lex ignored him but was grateful for his brother’s foolishness and whatever else the two of them would get into before the night was through. He needed a distraction from the woman in the gallery, an unwelcome phantom from his past. He’d have to eventually deal with her and everything she represented. But right now was for celebrating. Right now was for family.

       Chapter 2

      For Noelle, food was one of the true pleasures of life. She cooked well and often enough to please herself, but when she was someplace that served excellent food or visited a friend who could burn it up in the kitchen, she was in trouble. So she tried to stay away from the food at the gallery opening because it all looked sinfully good. In one of the smaller display alcoves in the back of the gallery, some evil genius had arranged sushi of every conceivable type and color on a model of an old-fashioned Japanese ship. The ship was half Noelle’s body length and the rolls were replaced every ten to fifteen minutes. All around the barge, arranged like waves on an ocean, lay golden cream puffs bursting with curls of whipped cream and dusted with powdered sugar.

      She tried to stay away from the delicious display but couldn’t. Her sister had dragged her out of her house, and away from Netflix and her pint of pistachio ice cream, to mingle with people she didn’t know. Something Margot was doing more often lately. If she had to be away from her extremely comfortable couch, she might as well do something else she enjoyed. Like eat yummy-looking free sushi.

      After taking three steps away, Noelle floated back toward the sushi barge. The smell of fresh soy sauce and pickled ginger moved around her like a teasing breeze. She paused to stare at it and then looked away. And saw something else that made her mouth spurt wet with hunger.

      What might possibly be the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen stood near the front of the gallery. And he was staring at her. His lips faintly pink and parted. Tongue tucked suggestively into the moist V of the corner of his mouth in a way that made her thighs clench. Noelle frowned and took an unconscious step back at the sudden and ripe desire rising in her to plump her nipples and flutter her pulse. The dip of her spine connected with the sushi table. This man was nowhere near the type who usually caught her eye. She loved the Morris Chestnut types. Dark with silky skin and a six-pack she could scrub clothes on.

      This man was nothing like that. He was pretty instead of handsome. Skin like roasted wheat, a slender build and not very tall. He was probably just at her height of five foot eleven. He hovered his mouth over the rim of his champagne and stared at her as if there was no one else in the room.

      He stared without giving a damn who was watching him stare. Which was why it surprised her that he caught her attention so completely. He was looking at her, not at her face but at her legs, his compelling gaze gliding up her body in a way that was as thorough as it was intense. He took the champagne glass away from his mouth and licked his lips, a wet swipe of tongue that made her tremble a little, lean back against the table to keep her balance. A man wearing a pinstripe suit walked in front of her, broad and cheerful, saying something about the boat being edible, and rescued her from her disorientation.

      Okay. Chill, girl.

      She pressed a hand to her belly and turned away from the stranger at the same time the man took another step forward and made a sweeping gesture with his hands. The stranger was still looking at her. She could feel his stare like a hand on her thigh. Unexpected and arousing.

      “You okay, Noelle?”

      Her sister appeared at her side with a glass bottle of sparkling water in her hand. Slender and tense-looking with her straightened hair styled in a razor-sharp black bob, Margot was dressed in what Noelle called one of her Jessica Pearson suits. A gray couture number tight enough to inspire the proper amount of envy at her slim body, expensive enough to inspire jealousy of her presumably large wallet.

      She passed the water to Noelle without asking if she was thirsty. Noelle gratefully took the bottle even as she felt the stranger’s eyes slide from her face. Margot was so used to taking care of her since their parents died that it was second