by Devney Perry
But after a decade of arguing, with not only him but all the Greer men, who refused to let a woman cover the dinner bill, I’d admitted defeat. I believed in gender equality and empowering women, but I also recognized it was something Cash needed. It was his way to show gratitude.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said as we climbed into the Cadillac.
“Welcome. Thanks for letting me tag along.”
“Ha,” I deadpanned. “Did I have a choice?”
“Nope.” He grinned, reached across the cab and flicked the tip of my nose.
I swatted him away, smiling as we drove across the street to the motel.
The rooms at the Imperial Inn were all outward facing. The building was L shaped, with an office at one end that smelled like fresh coffee and vanilla air freshener. After the clerk handed over the keys to two neighboring rooms, Cash and I reparked the Cadillac closer to where we’d be staying and he hauled my suitcase inside.
“This is nice,” I said, tossing my purse on the fluffy, floral bedspread. The room was modest but clean. It wasn’t the Greer Resort, but nothing was.
“Do me a favor,” Cash said, setting my leather suitcase beside the closet. “Don’t open the door unless it’s me. I’ve never liked places where the doors open to the outside.”
“No problem.” I’d seen enough horror movies and thrillers to fear the knock on the motel room door after dark. My lock would remain deadbolted until sunrise. “What time do you want to leave in the morning?”
“Seven?”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Have a good night.”
“You too.” He crossed the room and bent low, wrapping me in a hug.
I slid my hands around his waist, burrowing into his strong shoulder and taking one long heartbeat to savor his strength. To soak up his spicy cologne and heady, masculine scent. I dragged it through my nose, holding it in.
His arms drew me closer.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pretending for a split second this was real. That this embrace was more than a friend wishing another friend good night. Then before I was ready, he was gone.
The heat from his chest disappeared, replaced by the cool night air, as he took a too-long step away.
Cash’s forehead furrowed as he stared down at me, a look of shock marring his handsome face.
Oh my God, I’d sniffed him. I’d sniffed him and he’d heard and now things were weird. Shit. And I’d been holding on to him so tight. I’d been clinging to him. Clinging. What did I do? What did I say? My brain was scrambling for any way to downplay that hug, but before I could make up some lame excuse about feeling lonely or tired, Cash patted the top of my head and strode out of the room, the door swinging closed behind him.
I waited, listening to his bootsteps, as he walked down the sidewalk to his room. The door opened and shut, echoing through our adjoining wall. Then it was silent, the insulation between our rooms preventing me from hearing anything else.
I blew out the breath I’d been holding. Mortification flamed across my cheeks.
Did he know? Had that hug just given me away? There was a reason I kept a safe physical distance from Cash. Two feet at minimum. Because apparently my body couldn’t be trusted.
I groaned, collapsing onto the end of the bed and burying my face in my hands.
Cash had patted my head.
I’d hugged him, sniffed him, and he’d patted my head.
What the fuck was wrong with me? Why was I doing this to myself? Why couldn’t I just shut it off?
I don’t love Cash.
I don’t love Cash.
I don’t—
A sob came out of nowhere and escaped my lips. I slapped a hand over my mouth in case there was another. This roller coaster was killing me. We were friends one minute, talking and eating and laughing, then the next I just wanted him to hold me. To say good night with a kiss instead of a childish pat on the damn head.
Why was letting him go so hard?
Why couldn’t he love me back?
Chapter Five
Cash
“Cash,” Kat snapped as the tires buzzed on the rumble strip.
I jerked my gaze up and righted the car before drifting into the other lane. Thankfully it was empty.
Fuck. What was with me today?
“What’s with you today?” she asked.
Of course she’d snatch the words from my head. The two of us had been friends for so long, it wasn’t uncommon to finish each other’s sentences.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Just, uh, lost in thought.”
Katherine hummed and returned her gaze to the passenger window, staring out over the green fields that rolled beyond. Her attention had been fixed on the landscape all morning, which was probably why she hadn’t noticed that the reason I’d been bouncing between the white line of the shoulder and yellow center divide for the past twenty miles was because my eyes hadn’t exactly been on the road.
They’d been on her.
I ran a hand over my jaw, then gave it a smack, wishing I could knock some sense into my head. Since I hadn’t shaved my beard yet, maybe it would cover some of the confusion on my face.
Something was not right. Things felt . . . weird. With Kat. And I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Last night, we’d had a normal dinner. At least, it should have been normal. Just two friends sitting across from one another, talking. And she’d confided in me. Finally, Kat had trusted me with details from her past.
Was that why dinner had felt so . . . intimate? Maybe it was just the setting, but damn, it had felt like a date. I’d teased her about thinking of it like one but hadn’t expected to actually fall for it myself. And not just a date.
A good date.
The best date.
I shook my head and gripped the steering wheel harder. Eyes on the road. Do not look at her knees.
They were just knees, like the shoulder I’d been glancing at a minute ago was just a shoulder. It was only bare skin, smooth and creamy. Flawless except for the one freckle that dotted the apex of her arm and the other that peeked out from the hem of her denim shorts.
When had Kat gotten freckles? Why was I noticing today?
I reached for the console and cranked up the air conditioning. Maybe if it was colder she’d cover those knees and shoulders and skin with something. Because Kat hated to be cold and if I dropped it low enough in here, she’d produce the sweater that was no doubt hiding in that suitcase she called a purse.
When had Kat begun showing so much skin? Normally she wore jeans and long sleeves, her shirts always embroidered with the resort’s logo. Even on weekend workdays, she wore a T-shirt and jeans. Was that even a tank top? With its lace trim and satin sheen, it looked more like lingerie.
The temperature had spiked today and the sun was beating down on us since she’d asked to drive with the top down for a while.
“Why did you turn the air on?” she asked, looking above us to the open air.
“I’m hot.” Desperate. What would it take for her to put on a goddamn sweater? “Are you wearing sunscreen?”
“Uh, no.” She gave me a sideways glance. “Why?”
“You’re going to get burned.” Get the sweater, Kat. You know you want to.
“I’ll be fine. At the next gas station, I’ll grab a bottle for us.”
Us. Why did that word sound so serious? It wasn’t the intimate kind of us. There was no us. Not in the couple sense of the word. Did I want there to be an us?
Yes.
That lightning-fast internal response nearly had me slamming on the brakes, turning this car around and going back to Montana, where the world was normal.
Kat was my friend. My best friend. Roommate. Coworker. Pseudo sibling. There were days when I’d trade Easton for her permanently. Okay, any day. There were plenty of ways to label our relationship and us was not one.
I could not—would not—tear down the boundaries that nearly a decade and firm family reminders had put in place.
; Yes, Kat was a beautiful woman. But like I’d told myself at the beginning, after my family had practically adopted her, Kat was off-limits. A single prime-rib dinner and a trip to Oregon weren’t going to change that.
I was blaming Harry’s Supper Club and the Imperial Inn. That goddamn hotel. Tonight, we were sure as fuck staying somewhere nicer. A hotel with working alarm clocks and decent towels. Big towels. Towel sheets. The scraps they’d justified in the Imperial were a goddamn joke.
Because maybe if I hadn’t witnessed Kat clutching a scrap of terry cloth to her naked, dripping-wet body this morning, I wouldn’t be so spellbound by her knees. It would be easier for me to remember that she was off-fucking-limits.
Fuck you, towels.
I’d woken up this morning at my normal time, around five thirty. I’d showered and done my best to shake off the non-date dinner. Then I’d dressed, packed my bag and gone to Katherine’s room.
I’d knocked once and waited. Then twice. After the third time with no answer, I’d been ready to kick the door in when her footsteps had sounded, running for the deadbolt and chain.
Kat had flung the door open and my mouth had gone desert dry.
The image was printed on my mind like a brand on a steer’s hide, burned there forever.
Her hair had been dripping wet, the dark strands depositing glistening drops on her skin. They’d run over her shoulders and down the line of her neck and collarbone. They’d raced over the swells of her breasts, disappearing into the towel.
Her face had been clean and her cheeks flushed, like she’d raced through the end of her shower to answer the door.
She’d rambled something about an alarm clock and her phone not being charged and sleeping late. Her words had been a jumble, delivered so fast they hadn’t penetrated my haze, but I could recall with vivid clarity how her lips had moved, soft and pink and ripe. The hand not clutching the towel had flailed in the air as she’d spoken, the movement causing the terry cloth on her left breast to slip and a hint of areola to show. The hem of that towel had barely covered the supple cheeks of her ass as she’d dashed toward the closet to pull out some clothes, only to disappear into the bathroom to get dressed.
I’d forced myself to close her hotel room door, her on the inside, me on the outside, and suck in some damn air as I’d tried to get my hard-on under control.
I’d gotten hard for Kat. My Kat. Katherine Gates, my incredibly sexy, incredibly off-limits best friend.
Kat would come along with me and some buddies whenever I took the family boat to the lake on rare summer weekends off. I’d threatened many friends with death by drowning because of the way they’d ogled her in a bikini.
I’d seen her in less than that towel. I’d seen her countless times after a shower. Granted, normally she wore the lavender puff monstrosity of a robe that my mother had bought her for Christmas a few years ago. It covered her from neck to calf but it was still after-shower attire.
But damn that towel.
I’d wanted to strip it from her body and taste her lips, discover for myself if they were as sweet and pure and clean as the water droplets clinging to her skin.
This was crazy. Fuck, I was losing my mind.
And I was hard again.
Son of a bitch.
“Do you want me to drive?” she asked, shifting in the seat. She tucked one ankle under the opposite knee and the position meant there was a lot of long, lean thigh in my periphery.
My eyes zeroed in on the dotted yellow line that broke the asphalt into halves. I refused to look at her leg. “No.”
“Okay.” She plucked the quarter out of the metal ashtray, where we’d stashed it.
Ahead, a sign indicated we were about ten miles away from the next town and the interstate. Idaho was long gone, apparently along with my self-control. We were in Washington, headed south.
“Let’s flip to see if we go straight or turn.”
“ ’Kay.” I nodded. “Heads, we keep south. Tails, we go east or west. We’ll flip again to decide.”
The coin turned end over end above her lap and landed with a light thud in her palm. She slapped it on the back of her opposite hand. “Tails.”
That meant we’d be getting on the interstate. East would take us toward Montana. Part of me wished for east, longing for the normalcy of home. But I knew Kat. She wasn’t going to be satisfied until the Cadillac was delivered, which meant whether I liked it or not, we were headed to Oregon.
Heads. Come on, heads.
She repeated the flip. “Heads.”
“West,” I breathed.
At least fate was sympathetic to my pain. If the coin flips continued to go in my favor, we’d keep this up. Maybe this attraction was a temporary glitch and tomorrow morning I’d feel differently. But if not, the second that quarter began to work against me, I was tossing it out the window and punching Heron Beach into the GPS.
“Want to stop?” I asked as we neared a gas station beside the interstate’s onramp.
“Yes, please.”
I nodded and eased off the road, deciding to fill up too and parking beside the pump.
“Are you coming in?” Kat hopped out and slid her sunglasses into her hair. It blew in the breeze and as a few wisps tickled her forehead, she lifted an arm to brush them away.
That move wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen a hundred times, but I sat in the driver’s seat, transfixed. She’d curled her hair again, for the second day in a row. It was as long as it had ever been, the glossy locks tumbling over the spaghetti straps of her dainty top.
“Cash.”
I blinked. Fuck. My. Life. “Yeah, I’ll be in after I gas up.”
“Okay.” Her long legs were impossible to ignore as she crossed the parking lot to the convenience store. I mean, they weren’t long. Not at all. I could pick her up with one arm and toss her over my shoulder, she was that small. But damn they looked long. Miles of smooth, tight skin leading down from an ass that my cock wanted to kiss.
I dropped my eyes to my zipper and the bulge forming beneath. “Fuck you.”
This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t have the hots for Kat. She’d laugh in my damn face.
We were friends.
We’d been friends for over a decade.
I shoved my door open and went about getting gas, taking a few moments to get myself in check. It wasn’t like these thoughts were completely foreign. It wasn’t like today was the first time I’d noticed that Katherine Gates was a gorgeous woman.
But today, it was like my body had finally had enough of my mind games.
After twelve years, denial’s ironclad grip was beginning to falter, and without my family around, there was no constant reminder that I was expected to behave a certain way where Kat was concerned. That they’d kill me if I broke her heart.
Yes, Kat and I had spent plenty of time together at home without my body getting overheated. But it was my grandparents’ former house.
Last night, she’d confided in me. She’d trusted me. And how was I repaying her? By sporting a goddamn chubby all day and gawking at her body.
I was such a fucking asshole.
The nozzle on the gas pump popped and I returned it to its cradle, closing the cap on the Cadillac’s tank before stuffing the keys in my pocket and walking into the store.
Katherine snared my attention instantly. She was standing in the candy aisle, her eyebrows furrowed. She was probably trying to decide between a salted nut roll or chocolate bar. Sure enough, I rounded the corner and she held one in one hand and the other in the opposite.
“Get both.”
She looked at me and frowned. “You always say that.”
I chuckled and walked closer, bending in front of her to pick up my own salted nut roll. On the way up, I miscalculated, moving too close. My arm brushed against hers and Kat’s peach scent drew me in. I hovered, unable to step away.
Her blue eyes lifted to mine and she held my gaze. God, she was close. So damn close. My fingers itch
ed to run up the bare skin of her arm and see if it was as velvety smooth as the fruit she smelled like.
When my gaze dropped to her lips, she gasped.
Christ. I took one long step back, then tossed her my nut roll. What was wrong with me? “I’m, uh . . . gonna use the restroom.”
“Okay.” She put the chocolate bar back and pointed to the row of coolers along the far wall, not looking at me. “What do you want to drink?”
“Water.”
She bolted away so fast her flip-flops nearly slipped on the glossy linoleum surface.
Hell. Now I’d made her uncomfortable.
I marched to the bathroom and splashed a handful of cold water on my face. “Get your shit together, Greer.”
The smell of industrial cleaner and a urinal cake chased Kat’s scent from my nose but as soon as we were back in the car, it would be waiting. It was how our house smelled, sweet and fresh. It was not a new smell, yet today, there was a heady, alluring undertone. I’d noticed it last night in the hotel room when she’d hugged me good night.
When she’d come into my arms so easily that for a moment, I’d forgotten I had to let her go.
I used the bathroom, my mood growing more and more irritable with every passing second. When I stalked out of the men’s room, Kat was visible through the store’s plate glass window, standing beside the Cadillac, her head bent and her fingers flying over the screen of her phone. I walked to the candy aisle, grabbing the chocolate bar she hadn’t bought and a pack of gum, delaying my return to the car for just another minute.
This trip was supposed to be fun. Yesterday had been fun, driving wherever the quarter directed. Hearing stories about her past from her own lips. Sharing a good dinner and her company.
Dany’s jealousy hadn’t been that off base, had it? Last night had stirred emotions that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge—lust, for one.
Well, lust could fuck right off. I wasn’t going to sabotage my friendship with Kat just because my cock was going through a dry spell.