My brain was silenced as heat flooded my body and my chest ached with emotions I couldn’t explain. After a heartbeat, the shock faded, and I kissed him back. My lips clung to his, trying to replicate what he was doing. For one blissful moment, it was all about the sensation, the unbearable intimacy of having his lips on mine, sharing the same air, the same wet tenderness of mouths colliding and pressing together.
And then he was gone. Pulling back so quickly and effectively that I went cold from the sudden lack of his touch.
In a flash, he was back on his side of the truck and staring down at his hands which were once more planted on the steering wheel as though he’d never left that spot.
As if that kiss had never happened.
For a second I stared at him in shock. Maybe it hadn’t happened. Maybe that had been a dream—some vivid, lucid dream. Could shock and adrenaline bring on lucid dreams?
But my lips still tingled from the feel of his mouth, my skin still burned from the touch of his fingers on my face.
It had happened.
So now I had to know…what the hell was that?
Chapter Four
Noah
I stared down at my hands like they might have the answers.
What was that? What the hell was that?
If I could have turned back time I would have. I would have gone back and…and what? It wasn’t like logic or reason could have stopped me. In that moment, nothing could have stopped me from kissing Callie.
I still hadn’t caught my breath, my heart was still racing. My body was still on fire with want.
“Um… What just happened?” Callie’s voice was soft and breathless in the silence of the truck. It was sexy.
No, not sexy. Never sexy. This is Callie I was thinking about. Callie.
“That,” I said slowly, “Was a mistake.”
I repeated it to myself a hundred times more. It was a mistake. That was all. It was a mistake. I refused to think about how good it felt. How amazing. How freakin’ right.
I could feel her eyes on me in the darkness of the truck’s cab. I knew she wanted more from me. I knew she wanted answers. But those were answers I couldn’t give. Not now, not here. Besides, we had bigger things to worry about.
Like, how the hell was I going to get us out of this?
In this moment I had so many reasons to hate myself, it was hard to know where to begin. I should never have swerved for a freakin’ skunk, or a raccoon, or whatever that creature was. I should never have put myself in a situation where I was alone with Callie. But most of all, I should never have let her climb into this piece of junk, which should have been sold for parts years ago.
I’d handled everything wrong today, but my worst fault by far was putting Callie at risk.
I scrubbed a hand over my face as I willed my mind away from mistaken kisses and back to reality. “I’ve got to get you out of here.” I gave a weary sigh. “I need to see what’s wrong with the truck, but first we need to get you out of here.”
“I can wait here with you,” she said. “Maybe you can fix it.”
I doubted it. Steam was coming up from the hood and I had a feeling that whatever was wrong with the truck this time around was more serious than something I could fix alone in the dark on a country road without any tools.
I shook my head. “Even if I can, I’m not taking you anywhere in this piece of junk until it gets fixed. Besides, you can’t be late, remember?”
I glanced over and saw her nod but when she bit her lip, looking all hesitant and vulnerable, I had to look away. Everything in me wanted to reach out to her, to pull her close and reassure her.
“But…” she said. “But I don’t want to leave you out here alone.”
And I couldn’t be out here alone with her for one second longer than necessary. The sad truth of the matter was, I didn’t trust myself when I was alone with her.
Her touch on my arm was feather light. Her fingers grazing over my skin. But I felt it. I felt it to my core.
“Your arm,” she said. “Your shoulder.” Concern tinged every word. “Are you all right?”
I hadn’t even realized I’d been rubbing my shoulder. The ache there had become so familiar there were times I didn’t even notice it. Especially at times like this, when the last thing on my mind was my stupid shoulder.
“I’m fine.” It came out as a growl and she pulled away.
Good. I needed her to back away. I needed space.
Still, I could feel the absence where her fingers had been.
“I’m going to go check under the hood,” I said. “See how bad it is.”
I turned to face her but quickly averted my gaze from the sight of her brown eyes, so wide and luminous in the dark. Eyes that would haunt my dreams tonight, I had no doubt.
“You should call your friends and have them come pick you up,” I said.
I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye. Good. Great. She’d be picked up by her friends, and I’d get this stupid truck fixed once and for all. Hell, maybe I’d just drive it straight to the junkyard, assuming I could bring it back to life long enough to get there.
The night air was cold and brisk. It brought me back to my senses and helped put everything in perspective.
What had just happened in that truck…that crazy, intimate, tension-filled truck. That had been a mistake. I knew that now. I could put this back on track but it would mean keeping my distance from Callie. Not just tonight. Not just this week while she was at the softball clinic. I needed to steer clear of Callie and avoid being alone with her for the foreseeable future.
I couldn’t trust myself around her. I couldn’t trust myself not to act on my feelings. And Eric had made it very clear just what a mistake that would be.
I was leaning over the hood of the car, hating myself, hating this truck, hating everything around me. And then she was there beside me. She was so close I could smell her lavender shampoo mixed with that scent that was all hers and hers alone. It wafted on the breeze, so much headier than all the wildflowers in the world.
Intoxicating.
I pretended not to know she was there, focusing instead on the innards of my busted truck.
“No reception,” she said softly.
I looked up and she waved her cell phone at me with a sad, rueful little smile.
Pulling my cell out of my back pocket I glanced at it and cursed. “Me neither.”
“I guess you’re stuck with me then.” Her tone had a forced lightness to it. That hurt more than any recriminations she might have thrown my way. I could have handled her yelling at me for being a standoffish prick these past few encounters, I even could have handled her looking at me with disgust for having kissed her like that.
But seeing Callie pretend like nothing was wrong between us was a weirdly specific kind of torture, because I wanted it to be true. I wanted us to go back to normal, I wanted my feelings toward her to go back to wherever it was they’d been hiding before my life flipped upside down.
I wanted to turn back time and be able to give Callie a warm smile and maybe a side hug as I tousled her hair and told her everything was going to be fine. But if I put my arm around her…well, I had no idea what would happen but I knew what I would want. More kisses, more touches. I would want to get as close as humanly possible to this girl and never let go.
So instead I cleared my throat and focused on the mangled guts under the hood and tried to think. “We should probably head back the way we came,” I said, nodding toward the main road. We weren’t too far off, though I couldn’t remember passing a gas station or even a house. There had to be something there though. If nothing else, there’d be cars we could stop or maybe even some cell reception.
She nodded, shoving her hands into her pockets and hunching her shoulders a bit against the cool breeze. Ah hell. I wanted to put my arm around her again, and this time to not help warm her would just be mean. But instead of body heat, I shrugged off my hoodie and tossed it to her, watching as she
silently slipped it over her own jacket, her arms and hands promptly swallowed up by the too-large sleeves.
“Let’s go,” I said, heading the way we’d come. I heard her fall into step beside me and we walked in silence for several heart-poundingly awkward moments.
She finally broke it. “You know,” she said, her tone teasing. “If ever there were a good time for us to talk about what’s going on here, now would probably be it.” She glanced around pointedly. “It’s not like there’s anything else going on.”
“What do you mean?” I teased, before I could catch myself. “There are some seriously epic constellations out tonight that require my undivided attention.”
She took one look at the cloudy sky and laughed as she smacked my arm. “Be serious, Mason.”
“I’m always serious, Cooper,” I shot back. Using our last names like we’d always done when cheering for one another on and off the field, it helped me feel like I was back on solid ground. Besides, using the name Cooper helped me to remember exactly who I was dealing with.
Eric Cooper’s little sister.
She deserves better, man. Eric’s tone hadn’t been unkind when he’d told me the truth of the matter. Just honest. Brutally honest. Eric was protective of Callie and didn’t want to see her hurt by me, his friend, the notorious player.
It had sucked to hear, obviously. No one wanted to be told that he wasn’t good enough, or capable of being the kind of guy a girl like Callie needed. But Eric had made it clear that if I went through with it, if I’d asked her out on a date, I would ultimately hurt her.
Worse than hearing that lecture from my best friend was the realization that followed in its wake. Eric was right. Callie did deserve better.
I wasn’t angry at Eric. He was just being a good older brother and looking out for her. Protecting her from me. I could respect that. I had respected that. But there was no way I could explain all that to Callie. Not here, not now. If there was ever to be a chance for us to be the kind of friends we once were, first I had to deal with these unwanted feelings. And I couldn’t do that with her around.
It was a sick circle, really. I couldn’t be her friend until I got over her, and I couldn’t get over her until she wasn’t my friend. Maybe one day I’d talk to her about it and give her the kind of apology she deserved, but for now, all I knew was I had to keep my distance for the sake of my sanity, along with my friendships with both Cooper siblings.
“We need to talk, Noah,” she started again.
I let out a short exhale. “I told you, there’s nothing to talk about.”
She stopped short and I had to stop too or leave her behind. When I turned back to face her I didn’t know whether I was going to laugh or groan. Amusement battled with misery at the sight of her standing there with her lips pursed and her hands on her hips. With the oversized sweatshirt hanging well below her butt and that cap perched on her head, she was ridiculously adorable.
It was nearly impossible not to pull her into my arms and kiss her senseless.
My mind flashed on the way her soft lips had parted beneath mine, just enough that I could feel the wet heat of her mouth. Just enough to fuel my fantasies for years to come.
She tilted her head to the side, arching her brows in challenge. “Noah Mason, you have been a giant jerk to me ever since your injury. And now, tonight, you kissed me?”
Shame and misery made me wince in the face of her open challenge.
“I’d say there are absolutely some things we need to discuss.”
“I told you,” I said, scratching the back of my head and shifting on my feet under her watchful stare. “That kiss was a mistake.”
A beautiful, unforgettable, amazing mistake.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t react at all, really. “Fine. It was a mistake.” She shrugged and that gesture was a blow to my pride.
She was so quick to accept that it was a mistake that it confirmed my hunch that it meant nothing to her. I might’ve been dreaming about kissing her for six months now, but she still only saw me as her brother’s best friend.
I swallowed down a thick knot of disappointment. I was being a hypocrite and I knew it. I was the one who’d called it a mistake—because it was. She’d just been agreeing with me.
But somehow that didn’t make it any easier to hear.
She took a step toward me. “The kiss was a mistake,” she repeated, jabbing the knife in a little deeper. “But how do you explain your behavior ever since you went away?”
She had this smug look about her. No, not smug, necessarily, just…knowing. She thought she knew the answer.
For a minute back there in the truck I’d been gripped by the fear that she did know. I’d had a terrifying thought—what if Eric had told her everything? What if Eric had thought it best to tell Callie that his best friend was infatuated with her and that he’d had to warn me off for her sake?
It hadn’t seemed unreasonable. I mean, Eric was a loyal friend but he was an even more protective brother. If his loyalty was tested, he would choose Callie every time.
But her obvious confusion when I’d asked if she’d talked to him had given me my answer. She hadn’t known what I was referring to, that much was obvious.
So now, as she gave me that knowing look, her hands still propped on her hips, I had to remind myself that whatever she thought she knew…she was wrong. She had no idea how I felt about her.
The memory of that kiss flashed through my mind as if to argue the point. Well, she might have some clue now, even if she hadn’t before.
“You’ve been pushing me away,” she said, a plaintive note in her voice. “And I wish you’d tell me why.”
I opened my mouth and slammed it shut. Was it possible she still didn’t see it even after that kiss?
She sighed and dropped her hands to her sides, her whole body slumping a bit as though she’d run out of steam. “I don’t get it, Noah. Or…I don’t know, maybe I do. But I need to hear it from you.” She shook her head, frustration clouding her gaze. “I’m trying to understand how you must feel. How hard it must have been for you to be around me after the injury, but…”
I saw her swallow. Then I watched her take a deep, fortifying breath. “I care about you, Noah. You’re as close as family and you always will be. But I won’t just stand by and let you treat me like crap.”
Self-hatred was crippling. It hurt to breathe but I couldn’t look away from those eyes, so big and warm a guy could drown in them. Those eyes that were almost always filled with love and laughter, but were currently filled with hurt.
I did that. I’d hurt her by pushing her away. I’d done it to protect her, I told myself. But yeah…that line of reasoning was so not working right now. Not when I could see the pain I was causing her reflected there for all the world to see.
Because that’s the kind of girl Callie was—the kind who wore her heart on her sleeve, and who loved without conditions. She held nothing back, on the field or off.
My heart swelled with feelings for her that were too overwhelming to contain. “Callie—”
“Are you that angry with me?” she continued. “Do you really hate me that much that you won’t at least try to talk it out with me?”
Hate her. Hate her? “Callie, I don’t hate you.” My voice was gruff with emotion, but all thoughts of self-preservation and keeping Callie safely out of my reach faded in the face of her hurt. I moved forward until we were nearly touching and she made no move to back away. “I don’t hate you, Cal. I could never hate you.”
She blinked up at me, tears glistening in her eyes. “Then tell me what I’ve done, or what I can do to fix this.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. All I knew for certain was that I’d messed up. Big time. In my attempts to push her away, for her sake and mine, I’d hurt her. And that was the one thing I’d never wanted to do. God, I was such an ass.
And this is exactly why Eric doesn’t want you anywhere near her.
That logical voi
ce was not terribly helpful at a time like this. I wanted to ignore it, but it had a point. Even in my attempts to keep her safe I’d managed to hurt her. I was a walking disaster when it came to relationships or anything other than the easy friendships that came with being part of a team.
Anything beyond that? I had no idea. Just one of many areas of my life where I was a complete and total moron. “Callie,” I started again. I didn’t know what to say to make this right, I only knew I had to do or say something to take away that hurt look in her eyes. “Callie, I—”
The sound of a car driving up alongside us interrupted what I’d been about to say.
Thank God. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been about to say, but I had a feeling the truth would have come out eventually. My defenses were crumbling quickly in the face of that wounded expression she wore.
Callie, I love you. It would have been so easy to say. To explain and to justify and…and to drive her away.
Because Eric was right about that too. She didn’t feel that way about me. She saw me as a second brother. What had she said? You’re as close as family...
That spelled it out pretty clearly, didn’t it? She didn’t feel the same and she wouldn’t want to hear it from me, so thank God for good Samaritans.
I turned to face the car that had stopped across from us and my stomach sank as Callie gasped.
It wasn’t just any car. It had the sheriff’s office logo on the side.
“How you kids doing?” the deputy asked as he crossed the street. He was an older man with graying hair and a kind, fatherly smile.
We should have been relieved to be found by this man. Instead, I shared a look of horror with Callie. This…was not good.
“Car trouble?” he asked, his eyes moving beyond us to the smoking truck on the side of the road.
“Yes, sir,” I said, and then quickly explained what had happened, leaving out the party, of course, and the fact that Callie, a minor, was currently playing hooky from camp.
He walked over to his car to radio for a tow truck, leaving Callie and me to discuss her options.
The Perfect Catch (Kissing the Enemy Book 1) Page 5