She caught him staring. Immediately, he felt like an ass. Jamie respected her, and she deserved to be respected, not ogled.
He shifted awkwardly in his seat and tried to think un-sexy thoughts.
A Braves game onESPN. Changing the oil in the truck. Building an Ikea shelf.
“Hey,” Jamie said. His voice was as coarse as sandpaper. “Sammi said she’d meet us there.”
He braced his boots into the floorboards to physically ground himself. No woman had made him feel both so wildly turned on and straight-up giddy. A witchy spell he never wanted to end.
He still hadn’t figured out when to tell Brinton about re-signing his contract, but that was a future Jamie problem. He’d find the right way to tell her soon. For now, he wanted to bask in everything she had to offer.
It was a hell of a bounty.
Brinton smiled, appraising him carefully. He liked that too.
“You look…nice,” she said. “I like your hair.”
It was embarrassing how long he’d spent on it, but he wanted to impress her. He also shaved and wore his favorite white Henley tee and dark-wash jeans.
“Unlike you, I have one look, and this is it,” he said, gesturing down the length of his body, which gratefully, made her laugh.
“I like your chain too.”
His grin spread wider. Jamie only wore the thick gold Cuban link when he wanted to add a little razzle dazzle. He absolutely wanted that tonight. In fact, he wanted Brinton to know he was game for whatever she wanted from him.
At the cookout, he was too in his own head to tell her how nice she looked, but he wouldn’t make that mistake again. “You look gorgeous tonight. I mean—you always do.”
When she blushed, the same heat spilled across his cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, fluttering her cosmically dark lashes. Was she flirting with him?
Mercy, he hoped so.
“Do you like my boots? At first, I wasn’t sure I could pull them off…”
When she kicked her leg across the seat, her calf brushed against his knee, sending a bolt of shameless need straight to his crotch. His eyes traced the planes of her thighs. They were criminally thick in all the right places.
He didn’t stop until he reached the soles of her boots. Frankly, he wanted to see her in those boots and nothing else. He’d probably combust on the spot, but he’d gladly bear every fiery lick.
Instead, with superhuman restraint, he rested his hands on his knees, even as he longed to inch up her sumptuous thighs.
“Bee, you can pull anything off. Ladybird’s?”
She grinned and slid her leg off the seat. He stood corrected: her smile looked even better than those boots.
“Yeah, Birdie’s a peach.”
Jamie cocked his head, thoroughly amused. “Look at you, getting the lingo down.”
“I’m very observant. You could say it’s my job.”
She winked at him, and he chuckled. Her sense of humor, her mind…There was so much to admire. A Rubik’s cube he’d ferociously study until he cracked the code.
He was about to tell her that when she huffed out a breath, eyes filled with something he could only guess was trepidation.
What was she afraid of? At the thought, tension lashed Jamie’s neck and shoulders.
“Birdie told me that she knew your mom. At the lake, you said you didn’t want to talk about her for the article, and I understand that,” Brinton began. “But…I guess, over these last few days, I’ve really liked getting to know you. And I realized that I want to knowallof you, if that’s on the table? And I want you to know me too.”
