His hand cupped the side of her neck; the other splayed across her lower back. Her adrenaline rose. This kiss was better than any climb or bungee jump or zip line. Better than any other kiss.
Damn him.
She should put a stop to this. She should stop and tell him this was a big mistake and she’d just gotten caught up in the moment and it would never happen again. But she didn’t. Because he kissed like a god. If there was such a thing as a god of kissing. She pretty much only knew one thing at that moment—wave after wave of sweet sensation rippled through her, and whatever he was doing with his lips, she wanted him to keep doing.
Besides, she had wondered about this very thing, hadn’t she? Dreamed about it. Wished for it. His hand moved to her ass and brought her closer. Their clothes, wet from the rain, proved a flimsy barrier and oh my. She felt him.
A moan escaped her lips and that’s when he slid his tongue inside her mouth. She dug her fingers into his shoulder blades. The kiss grew in intensity; the temperature inside the car rose while they fogged up the windows.
He kissed her thoroughly, slowing their tempo before igniting it again. His hands seemed to touch her everywhere. When he brushed the outside swell of her breast, she sank into him. He let out a small groan.
This was better than she’d imagined. She felt his kiss deep in her belly, in her chest, between her legs.
They needed to come up for air before they ripped each other’s clothes off. She cupped his face in her hands and slowly ended the kiss. Heavy breathing filled the space between them. He ran his knuckles gently across her cheek and down her neck.
He was about to say something, but Erin pressed a finger to his mouth. “Shh. Please don’t say anything. I think we both know this was a mistake.”
A storm of emotions echoed through her. She couldn’t do this with him. He posed too great a risk to her heart. She climbed back into her seat, eyes down.
Troy lifted her chin. “I’ll see you later, Watters. Thanks for the ride.” He got out of the car without a look back.
Her shoulders rounded and her forehead touched the steering wheel. She’d just royally screwed up.
Chapter Eight
Tied up in one of those tight knots that were impossible to undo. That described Erin’s stomach since her mind-blowing kiss with Troy three days ago. She really wanted to forget it ever happened, but all she could think about was how she’d never been kissed like that before. To top it off, Will hated the preliminary plans she’d written up for some new programs at COA, telling her they sounded too much like psychoanalysis and could she lighten up on the lingo.
A few choice words had come to mind when he’d shooed her out of his office with a request for a new proposal in the next couple of weeks, but she’d bitten her tongue.
Oh, and she hadn’t heard a word from him.
Troy.
The kissing god she couldn’t get out of her head.
Not that he owed her a call or text or visit or anything. She had told him to shush. And said it was a mistake. Which it was. Because she still needed his help with finding someone to date who didn’t pose any sort of risk to her heart until she was sure she could trust him. A new rumor had it Candace had met some “amazing” guy.
She bristled at the thought.
Barney, the chef at the Crown & Anchor, chopped vegetables like nobody’s business. Plus, he didn’t mind her sitting on a barstool and taking up space at the stainless steel counter to watch. He also didn’t talk much, which was why she liked being there. Milt put a plate of baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas in front of her. Milt didn’t talk much either, but liked to feed her. Reason number two she liked being there. Especially when the only thing she felt like eating was mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Kagan strolled in through the back door, a warm glow on her face. Anyone looking at her would know she was madly in love. She flashed a smile at Barney and Milt and landed herself next to Erin a second later.
“How is it I work here and don’t get the service you do?”
“Grab a fork,” Erin said.
“What’s up?” Kagan grabbed the fork Barney handed her and took a bite of mashed potatoes.
“I was hungry.”
“Uh-huh. What else?”
Erin took a big bite of chicken.
“You can’t chew forever. Eventually you’ll have to talk.” Kagan forked two tiny peas and put them in her mouth.
“I thought today was your day off,” Erin said around the food in her mouth. If she’d known she’d be caught here, she probably would’ve stuck with the frozen goodness in her freezer at home.
“I’m filling in for Lily.” She eyed the boxes stacked up in the corner. “And I figured I’d come in early to help Milt with this week’s delivery.”
“Sela told me you and Shane set a date.”
“Yes.” A humongous grin spread across her face. “May twelfth.”
Erin bumped her shoulder. “I’m excited for you.” She was. Crazy how in the past seven months, those closest to her had found their happily ever afters. Even crazier was how much she might want one, too. She’d thought being on her own and forging her own path would keep her happy, but with all the matches going on around her, she realized she was lonely.
Did that mean she was ready to take another leap of faith and risk her heart? No. Not yet. There were good, decent guys out there and maybe one of them would keep her heart safe. But a part of her—a big part—was still terrified of having her heart broken again.
“Any new developments on the boyfriend front?” Kagan asked.
Jeez, had she started wearing her heart on her sleeve or something? “No. Troy said he’s got someone else for me to meet, though.”
“Huh.”
Erin eyed her. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“That huh definitely meant something.” She put her fork down. She wanted ice cream—or cookies. Cookies with ice cream sounded even better.
“Just that I hope it works this time.” She played with the bracelet on her wrist.
Erin did too. “New design?” she asked. The plain white leather band had just one bead on it, very different from the other bracelets she made.
“It is. Shane has a matching one. I thought it would be fun to design some couples bracelets.”
Her heart pinched. “It’s really nice. I have to go.” She stood and grabbed her keys off the counter. She’d tucked away foolish romantic notions a long time ago, but lately that’s all she could think about. And she hated it. Didn’t want to be around it.
“Because?” Kagan put a hand on Erin’s arm.
“Just need to have a conversation with someone. Bye.” To apologize or just make things clear, she wasn’t sure, but all of a sudden she needed to see Troy. She pressed her lips together in an attempt to smile, but it didn’t quite happen. “Thanks, Milt. Thanks, Barney.”
The late-afternoon chill was a welcome greeting as she pushed open the kitchen door and hurried to her car. She thought about because all the time.
Because she couldn’t survive her heart being broken again.
Because she didn’t trust herself not to fall head over heels for the wrong guy and have that trust broken.
She got to Troy’s place a few minutes later and parked on the street behind his car. Good. He was home. She marched up to his front door before she thought better of it and hightailed it home. Because as much as she needed to say this to him, seeing his handsome face always proved to unnerve her.
He didn’t answer the doorbell so she knocked. Or rather, pounded.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” she heard through the door.
It opened wide a second later and standing before her was a body unfair to every other male on the planet. She took in Troy, naked, except for a low-slung towel around his waist. Water dripped from his hair onto his shoulder. A bead trickled down and over his smooth, muscled pec. The droplet drifted left along a ridge of abdominal muscle, then right
, and disappeared into his belly button. A smattering of hair trailed down from there, disappearing under the towel. She was stuck on the serious bumps and grooves, the defined V at his hips, until a deep masculine ahem reminded her she was gawking right there in front of him.
Shit.
Her eyes snapped up to his clean-shaven face, which had sexy written all over it, too. Her entire body grew so aware of him that the slow smile he blessed her with had no doubt to do with the flush she sensed on her cheeks and neck.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Do you have a second?”
“Sure. Should I put some clothes on?”
“No. I mean yes! Yes, you should do that. Or you know what? We could do this another time.” She turned and took a few steps down the flagstone walkway. Guys did not fluster her. Why did this one in particular make her forget herself? Add one more thing that annoyed her about Subject X.
His hand on her shoulder stopped her. “Don’t go, Erin.” Click. It sounded like his front door shut. “Shit,” he said.
She spun around. Troy tried to open the door, but it didn’t budge. He ran a hand through his wet hair, the lifting of his arm doing very nice things to the muscles in his torso.
Their eyes met. Sunshine slanted through the tall trees on the property, but the temperature couldn’t be more than sixty degrees. Her gaze swept down his body to his bare feet and she couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing.
He watched her. Joy crinkled the corners of his eyes; his lips were pursed in amusement. “This is the third time I’ve locked myself out.”
“In a towel?” she managed to ask.
“No. This is a first for that.”
“Have a spare key hidden in a fake rock somewhere?” She looked down at the ivy lining the walkway.
“Unfortunately no.”
“You should probably do that.”
“Yeah.” He stepped around her and took the walkway that headed toward the main house. “With any luck my mom or sister left a door unlocked. There’s a spare key in the kitchen.”
Erin followed, tripping over a little divot in the flagstone because her attention was on his broad shoulders and the way the muscle corded in his back as he walked.
She stumbled a freaking second time checking out the way the towel molded to his butt.
He tossed a look over his shoulder. “You okay back there?”
“Fine,” she croaked.
The side door was locked. She waited while he went around to the front of the house. He shook his head as he came back into view. “Damn.”
Biting her lip didn’t hold back the laughter bubbling up to the surface again. She tried to stop, she really did, but… “I’m sorry. But this is pretty funny.”
He gripped the towel and shivered. “Think I could use your cell to call a locksmith and we sit in your car with the heat on to wait?”
Goose bumps popped up on his arms. Without thought she reached out, her hand rubbing up and down from his elbow to his shoulder. “You’re freezing.”
Even his brown eyes, usually so warm and lively, had dulled.
“Of course we can do that. Come on.” She lifted her hand and spun around. Without him to distract her, the walk back to her car went without incident.
She willed herself not to look him over when he sat in her passenger seat, the towel inching up his thighs and stretching across his lap. Holy nakedness, she hoped he didn’t notice how she could hardly breathe. How she wanted to climb into his lap again and do much more than kiss.
Remember why you drove over to see him in the first place. To talk.
“So, the reason for my visit.”
He turned the heating vent on himself for the full effect. She was already sweating and the heat had only just clicked on. “Yeah?”
“I think we should forget about the kiss. Pretend it never happened.”
“Okay.”
One little word in reply. A very valid word, because she had called foul on her actions. Of course he’d react with “okay” after that. What else could he say?
For a girl who kept things close and ignored uncomfortable feelings, this need to spout her thoughts to him really pissed her off. She should’ve just stuck with “it was a mistake.”
“It was a mistake,” she reiterated. To hurt him? Make herself feel better? She didn’t know. But she didn’t like herself very much at the moment.
His hand took hers and he laced their fingers. “We both got a little caught up, that’s all. And yeah, mistakes happen. I think we can agree it won’t happen again. Chalk it up to a little adrenaline rush from the rock climbing.”
Erin blinked back the sting of disappointment. Unwanted disappointment, but there all the same. She should be relieved, yet the ache in her chest intensified. “Right,” she said, the d’oh unspoken, but in her tone.
She looked down and watched his thumb rub over her knuckles. Why was he doing that? Contradicting his words with his touch? The simple caress roused too many emotions—want, fear, need, gratitude—so she slipped her hand out of his and picked up her cell. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” He found a locksmith, made the call, and handed the phone back. “He says he’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
“This is when my career in B&E would have come in handy.” Time to put some distance between herself and Mr. Goody Two-shoes.
Troy aimed narrowed eyes at her. “Breaking and entering? You?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?” She turned and leaned back against the car door, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Because you might have a devil-may-care attitude, but I’m pretty sure you stick within the confines of the law.”
“The best fun is had when rules are broken, you know.”
“I do know.”
Crap. He did. Didn’t he? He might have pushed his past out of his present, but he still remembered it. All the rich caramel color was back in his eyes now and she could have stared at them for hours.
She dropped her gaze to his chest. Double crap. Was any part of him hard to look at? Knowing all she had to do was reach over and whip that towel off and every delicious part of him would be exposed made it damn hard to concentrate.
He’d said something about knowing… “You’ve broken the law besides your illegal climb in New Mexico?”
“A time or two. Let’s talk about you, though.”
“Okay. In high school I wasn’t a very good girl.”
“You mentioned that.”
“My friends and I were bored a lot so we got into some trouble.”
“Breaking and entering.” He shifted and so did the towel, exposing a little more of his thigh.
She forced her attention out the passenger window. The trees were lovely. “Yeah. I’ve got a knack for picking locks.”
“Then why are we sitting here?” He turned the knob on the thermostat down. Thank heavens. She was about ready to roll down her window and start peeling off clothes.
“I don’t have any of my tools.” She smiled. “Besides, after Sheriff Fealy caught us for the third time, he got my parents involved and I promised them that my life of petty crime was over. Which was pretty easy considering they grounded me from seeing Marcus.”
“The sheriff’s son?”
“And the only person better than me at picking locks.” Also the reason the sheriff let them off the hook the first two times. They didn’t steal anything from the places they broke into. Just hung out with their friends.
Troy laughed. “He was showing off for you.”
“Maybe, but I wasn’t interested. And by the way, I’ve never told anyone this before so keep it to yourself.”
He ran the pad of his finger across his lips and turned his wrist in a lock-and-key gesture.
“Now tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.” She just could not let the man be.
“I stole a car when I was seventeen. It was a dare from my football teammates. Every year the captain was g
iven a challenge and if you didn’t do it, you lost all respect.”
“Yeah, but a car? Did you get caught?”
“Not only did I get caught, but I crashed it.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “No.” She would’ve been about fourteen or fifteen when it happened and racked her brain for some memory of it. Wait. “You’re the one who stole Mrs. Finnegan’s car?”
“I wish I could say borrowed.”
“Oh my God. They never released the name of the kid who did it because he was underage. I can’t believe it didn’t get leaked, though.”
“We were headed to the state championships. I got a slap on the wrist and mowed Mrs. Finnegan’s lawn until I graduated.”
“I remember that! Well, I remember Vanessa and her friends talking about some football player. You’d take your shirt off and put on a show. All the girls thought you were a dream for helping out Mrs. Finnegan.”
He grinned. Her gaze went back to his chest and a lesser woman would’ve surely drooled. She swallowed. God, his chest was in perfect muscled proportion. He must do hundreds of push-ups a day. Or work out with weights. Or maybe he practiced rolling and unrolling his hose—the hose—at the fire station.
Oh hell, her cheeks burned again. It was impossible not to flirt with him. She straightened against her seat and looked out the windshield.
Only to be confronted by her worst enemy getting out of a car with a tinfoil-covered plate in her hands and a disgustingly perky smile of her face.
“Is that Candace?” Troy asked.
“Duck and maybe she won’t notice us.”
But Candace’s annoy-Erin meter registered at full so she noticed them all right. And with a flip of her hair walked right over to Troy’s side of the car and tapped on the window. Candace’s eyes bugged out of her head when she noticed what Troy had on. Or rather, what he didn’t.
Erin wanted to claw Candace’s eyes out. She fisted her hands and wanted to shield Troy from Candace’s perusal. Her stomach hurt like she’d been kicked in the gut.
He rolled down his window. “Hey Candace.”
Wild About Her Wingman Page 12