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“So, I told you about my business and you panicked?”
He opened his eyes wide. “I thought you were going to cry, Lucy. I freaked right out. I broke out in a rash.”
“Well, then, all the more reason not to tell you about Los Angeles.”
“True,” he murmured, but watched her sideways, both of them slipping into waters so fast moving, so treacherous, they must be sick in the head. “But maybe you can change me.”
She howled with laughter, even as something in her chest spasmed. “How many women have gotten their hearts broken believing that?”
“Probably too many,” he said, sobering slightly.
She punched him in the shoulder, not enjoying the sudden downturn in mood. “Cads aren’t repentant. Goes against type.”
Again that grin. Again the electrical storm between them. “So? What should I be?”
Everything I want right now, she thought, everything I need. Fun. Easy. Uncomplicated. A blind release from the pressure keeping me up nights.
The words didn’t come. It didn’t feel as if anything was easy between them. Ben. Los Angeles. All of it complication upon complication.
But she still wanted him.
“You know…” He leaned forward, just slightly. Not enough to be pushy, but enough that the equation between them changed and her better sense was drowned out by the sudden clamoring demands of her body. “I might be wrong, but I’m sensing that perhaps you’re interested in breaking a certain rule you’ve given us.”
“It wasn’t just me,” she whispered, looking at his lips, the pinkness of them. The lushness of them. How did she not notice those lips before? Gorgeous. She wanted to investigate them further. “You agreed that anything between us would be a mistake.”
“Well,” he sighed, the smell of his breath intoxicating. “Maybe we just need different rules.”
“Like what?” Oh Lord, was that her voice? She sounded as if she’d been running uphill.
His finger touched her hand, the knuckle of her thumb, and her nipples got hard in a wild cataract of feeling. “Like...we keep things casual.”
“Casual?” She didn’t know how to tell him that she wasn’t very good at casual. She was trying, but it was hard for a woman who’d lived with a calling for most of her life. Who’d never had any other job but the one she’d just utterly failed.
“Yeah. Fun.”
“Fun?”
He tilted his head as if to get a better look at her. “Am I reading you wrong here, Lucy? I’ll admit I’m out of practice...”
“No, you’re not reading me wrong.”
She touched his hand, the roughness of his skin, the hair that prickled and teased her palms. So many textures, so many things to discover on him. He could be a project. Her imagination roared as she pictured his body. The perfect sculpture of it. The shadows and light of his skin. The flex of muscle, the tension of sinew.
“Lucy.” She looked up into those endless blue eyes, rimmed in black, filled with fire. A kiss. Yes. She did love to kiss.
His lips fell across hers like sunlight. Light and warm and sweet, and she melted into the moment, into him. He breathed out, she breathed in, and the Earth stopped rotating, as if someone had just pressed Pause on the rest of the world.
“Hey Uncle J.” Aaron, the oldest boy, charged onto the deck from the steps like a wild animal, and she and Jeremiah leaped apart. Her beer fell from numb fingers, rolling across the floor, spilling a trail of beer. “Sorry,” Aaron muttered, darting forward to grab the beer and hand it to her—half empty and sticky.
“It’s all right.” She laughed, nervous and awkward, her heart hammering in her chest.
“I forgot to tell you, but our next game moved to Beauregard.”
“Beauregard?” Jeremiah said. “That’s two hours away, buddy. I can’t take you that far on a Tuesday. Did you ask Mrs. Penning if you could ride with her?”
Aaron looked so crestfallen, so worried, that it was obvious there was no room with Mrs. Penning.
“Oh, man, Aaron,” Jeremiah said, clearly pained. “I just...I just can’t—”
“I can,” Lucy blurted before she thought about what she was doing. Aaron beamed. Jeremiah looked thunderous.
“What are you talking about?” Jeremiah demanded.
“I’m starting a taxi service.” Not that she’d done anything about it yet but give Reese one very expensive ride. “I can take him, but...you know...it’ll cost you.”
“We’ll pay!” Aaron said.
“Now, hold on a second, Aaron. A taxi? Is this a joke?”
“What can I say? I see a need and try to fill it. My entrepreneurial spirit cannot be squashed.”
“Lucy,” he whispered. “You are an artist, a famous designer—”
Her body shook away from the words, not wanting to hear them out of someone else’s mouth. She stood. “Fifty dollars should cover it,” she said, unable to stare at Jeremiah’s questioning face.
“Fifty dollars, Uncle J—”
“That will cover gas and maybe a cup of coffee,” Jeremiah said. “Your entrepreneurial spirit needs a business education.”
