She read his face like a map. He thought she’d ask about his divorce. Most women wanted to know about a man’s failures in love. Not Simone. She’d had too many failures at love herself.
Like Andrew, her ex-fiancé. Putting it mildly, they hadn’t been compatible in the bedroom. She knew it was all her fault. But sometimes, well, she got carried away. Loudly. Once Andrew even covered her mouth with his hand. It would have been okay, maybe, if he’d kissed her instead, but he’d used his hand to muffle her cries. No, her screams. She was a screamer. Oh my God. Her mother would have been appalled at her lack of control. Excess and exuberance were dirty words in the Chandler household. After that, Andrew simply took care of the problem by not touching her in certain spots.
So no, Simone would not ask about Brax’s divorce. “Did Maggie really beat you up when you were kids?”
He laughed, half relief, half openmouthed wonder, she was sure. “Yeah. All the time.”
“And you never hit her back?”
“She was a girl.”
“But she tortured you mercilessly.”
He shook his head. “Never hit her.”
“But you did retaliate in some way, didn’t you?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “It took years of planning.”
“What did you do?”
“Timing was everything.”
“But what’d you do?” She waited, feeling breathless and wide-eyed.
“Well...”
“Come on, come on.” She twitched her toes under his palm.
The sun had fallen completely behind the hills. The room was dark and intimate. Dorothy was skipping down the Yellow Brick Road. Simone wanted more than Brax’s hand on her foot.
The warmth of his skin heated her on the inside. Too much. He chose that moment to withdraw his light touch, as if he, too, felt the sudden intimacy. And needed to break it. She should have been glad. She’d been rushing toward something she feared she couldn’t handle.
Instead, she mourned the loss. Jeez, she wanted him to touch her. Badly. Three long years badly.
“In the tenth grade, Maggie had a huge crush on Ricky Meyers. So I invited him over to go swimming because we were the only ones in the neighborhood with a pool, one of those big Doughboy things. I told Maggie he was upstairs in my room and wanted to see her.”
She gasped. “You didn’t let her walk in on him naked?”
He nodded. “I was only twelve, and I figured she’d get the shock of her life when she saw him changing into his swimsuit.”
“You were so bad.” But terribly cute.
“Only thing was, Ricky wasn’t just changing into his swimsuit.”
She cocked her head. “What was he doing?”
“Then, I wasn’t sure. She screamed, and he ran out. For weeks afterward, I thought he had sunburn because his face was red whenever I saw him. Beet red.”
“Beet red.”
“Yeah. Beat red.” This time he stressed the word.
Oh my God. She covered her mouth. Her face turned beet red, she was sure. And it made her think of her afternoon fantasies about Brax all over again. “He wasn’t...”
“Yeah. He was,” Brax said gravely.
“Sheriff Braxton, that is the worst prank I’ve ever heard.” She wanted to let go with an exuberant laugh her mother would have disapproved of, while the heat in her cheeks reached deep inside, warming those certain spots of hers to conflagration stage.
Brax raised a brow. “Well, I didn’t know he was going to do that. I didn’t even know what that was. At the time.” He spread the fingers of one hand, keeping the other in contact with her skin, her arm, her elbow, her calf, the back of her ankle, driving her crazy. “I led a very sheltered life.”
“Poor Maggie.” She smiled behind her hand.
“I wasn’t sure she’d recover. My dad grounded me for a month and told me if she was scarred irreparably by the incident, it would be a weight I’d carry on my shoulders the rest of my life.”
“You deserved the worry.” The grin on her lips belied the solemn words, but she couldn’t help it. Nor could she help her quickened breath and racing heart. “But Maggie must have gotten over it by the time she married Carl.”
He laughed then. “All those years of agonizing guilt I suffered, then, when we were drinking champagne after her wedding, she told me she hadn’t been screaming at all. She’d been laughing hysterically.”
“Laughing?”
“Yeah. Ricky Meyers was a tad on the small side. I never knew it, but she was the one who started calling him Tiny Tim.”
“Guess she got you in the end, huh?”
“I learned one of life’s great lessons very early.”
“What’s that?”
“Revenge backfires.”
She laughed, but when she lifted her eyes to his, the smile died away. His blue eyes were suddenly so hot. Burning, blazing. For her. She hadn’t been wanted in such a way in a long, long time. And he did want her. She knew.
He robbed her of her breath. He stole her power of speech. He warmed her skin and peppered it with goose bumps all at once.
Dropping her gaze, she played absently with her toes. He stroked her forearm. Ooh. He was big-time getting to her.
“I want to kiss you, Simone.”
Oh my. The things this man made her feel. He was adorable, like a big huggable grizzly bear with a heart of gold. Did grizzlies have hearts of gold? Well, he did. For the first time in a while, she wanted more than the fantasy on her computer. She wanted to close her eyes and lose herself in his hot touch. As scary as that was.
Very scary. Too scary. She was a baby-step kind of girl. The thought of baring anything, everything—physically or metaphorically—terrified her. What if she got too exuberant? What if he covered her mouth?
But, oh my, she wanted more. Not all-the-way more, just a tiny bit more. Something nonthreatening, but very sexy, very erotic. Something to tease herself with.
He smelled so good. Purely soap and shaving cream laced with the subtle hint of hot hard male. She’d forgotten what an aroused male smelled like. She’d missed that, too.
Simone raised her gaze to his, the light of the TV flickering across his cheek. Then she tucked her feet beneath her and rolled to her knees, putting her hand on the back of the sofa next to his shoulder, her lips inches from his.
“You know, Brax, I’d like to kiss you. But there’s something I’d like even more.”
* * * * *
God help him, he was about to complicate things. Against his better judgment. But right now, Brax would give her anything. Everything. He couldn’t help himself.
“What do you want?” His voice almost cracked like an adolescent.
He wasn’t a man who usually asked permission. A woman gave signals. A man learned to read them. He didn’t think he was wrong about hers. The quickened rise and fall of her chest, the flush tingeing her flawless skin above the neckline of her T-shirt, and her concentration with her toes. Yet something made him hold back, some indefinable sense that he wanted her sanction. Her unqualified consent to full participation in the sweetest kiss his mind had ever conjured. He anticipated her taste with an intensity so great his hands shook.
He scanned her features, her eyes, her slightly parted lips, and drank in the citrus scent of her hair. He wanted the touch of her crimson lipstick and the lingering taste of licorice.
“I want the fantasy,” she fairly purred.
“The fantasy?” Which fantasy? His? Hers? He’d die to know what they were.
“Yeah, you know, that whole building-tension thing, where you want and you anticipate and you’re pretty sure you’re going crazy, because it’s all you can think about, every moment, sleeping or waking.”
Her words were so damn close to the way he was feeling. “And?”
“Don’t you remember how it was when you were sixteen? You wanted to touch that girl, whoever she was, so badly, your fingers itched and your whole body felt like it was going to ex
plode.”
He’d been seventeen, and the girl was Mary Alice Turner.
“You ached for the touch of her breast through her blouse, wanted the feel of its peak in your palm. You were on the edge, dying, needing.”
Simone’s voice took him back to that time, that place, the backseat of his dad’s Chrysler, sweet, pure, innocent desire consuming him.
“You wanted to get to first or second base, maybe even third so bad you thought you’d die. It was so intense you almost lost it with the thought of touching her most private, intimate spot.”
Her voice and his memories seduced him.
“That’s eroticism,” she whispered. “Wanting but not being able to have. It made you feel so alive, so aware, breathless with desire. And when you finally got what you wanted, if you ever got it, you’ll never forget that moment.” She licked her lips. “Do you remember what that was like, Brax?”
God, yes. He’d wanted Mary Alice with the fervor of teenage hormone overload. He remembered the depths of despair, then the glory of that first kiss and, yes, Mary Alice Turner’s nipple against his palm. He never made love to Mary Alice, but he’d wanted to with every fiber of his being. He couldn’t remember a time that was more intense or made him feel more alive.
Simone was right. Kissing her right now would be great, having sex with her even better, but if he let the need, anticipation, and desire build, he might recapture that feeling of aliveness he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.
Maybe that was another thing that had been filling him with this sense of restlessness, not only the murder, but also the feeling that life was passing him by without him even noticing. Maybe his memory of Mary Alice had been piqued by the recent goings-on in Cottonmouth, but he’d wondered a couple of times what had happened to her after she left town. Old hurts, past mistakes, previous errors in judgment. They’d consumed him in recent weeks. His dead friend, his dead marriage, his ex-wife. Maybe he’d never shown her the passion she needed to make her feel alive. He knew he’d never truly felt alive in the marriage.
Brax touched Simone’s cheek, then trailed a finger down to her jaw, farther still to the hollow above her collarbone. Again, he trembled with the warmth of her skin. His breath came fast, his gut clenched, and his groin tightened.
He wanted that kiss. He wanted her breast in his palm, his hand in her panties, and his body buried deep inside her. But more, he wanted this, the wild need clutching his chest, the sense that he couldn’t take his next breath without mingling it with hers. The fear that he’d come without a touch, with nothing more than the sound of her voice so damn close to his ear.
She made him feel the blood pounding through his veins, the pulse at his temple, his throat, and his fingertips, the rush of heat across his skin. She made him feel fiercely alive.
“I remember,” he murmured, his gaze holding hers. “And I want that feeling. With you.”
She leaned in, closing the small distance between them, and licked his lower lip with her tongue.
He damn near exploded in his pants.
She did the one thing he couldn’t do for himself. She made him forget his guilt. Even if only for a short time.
* * * * *
The witch cackled, Dorothy fell asleep in the field of poppies, and the Tin Man cried.
Simone realized they’d missed more than half the movie.
Brax watched her with...intensity. His gaze traveled over her face, coming to rest on her lips. Her skin felt flushed, her body more than aroused, her nipples hard and achy. Her stomach fluttered like one of the heroines in her stories.
“We missed the part where we would have found out if they were sisters.”
His eyes didn’t even flick to the screen. “Yeah, we did.”
“Then I guess we’re both losers.”
He picked up a lock of her hair that rested against her chest, the back of his hand brushing across a nipple for the tiniest moment. A flame sparked inside her.
An answering blaze lit his eyes to a deep blue. “I don’t see any losers around here.”
“I think you’re a nice man.”
He grinned. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that calling a man nice is the kiss of death?”
“Men don’t like to be told they’re nice?” She knew that. They wanted to be told they were hot or macho or hunky or virile or big where it counted. But nice? Not.
“There’s always a but that comes after nice.”
“Not this time. This time it’s the highest of compliments. The last nice man I met, I almost married.” Oops darn. She shouldn’t have said that.
“But you didn’t marry him. Nice wasn’t so nice after all.”
Andrew had been nice. “He just had a little phobia about catastrophic failure.” As if it rubbed off on those closest to the ruined individual.
“I’m sorry.”
She smiled brightly, though her face felt like cracking. “I’m so over it now.” Not. Especially not Andrew’s disgusted whispers in the dark. That was the worst part. Simone, the neighbors will hear you.
Which was why it was much better not to let Brax touch her on any of those certain spots that would make her lose control completely. Now, she wrote about sex without actually experiencing the act. Much safer that way.
“Glad you’re over it.” Brax wrapped her hair around his finger, let it pull loose, then tucked the lock behind her ear. His touch lingered. He traced the shell of her ear, a barely there caress that sent chills and thrills down her spine.
This was what she’d meant about building the need and heightening the senses with anticipation. He’d understood completely. A kindred spirit, looking for something more than the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am of a short vacation fling. When he left Goldstone, they’d both have wild memories, even if this moment was all they had. And there would be no embarrassing hand-over-the-mouth episodes or appalled looks in the aftermath.
She trailed the tip of her finger from his Adam’s apple to the center of his chest. A light stroke, a subtle caress.
He growled low in his throat. “Say it.”
“Say what?” She’d say anything he wanted her to.
“The bumper sticker thing.”
She understood. “Don’t make me bring out the flying monkeys.”
He closed his eyes and murmured, “Say it like you mean it.”
She did, gritting her teeth and infusing emotion into the words. “Don’t make me bring out the flying monkeys.”
He captured her finger and drew it to his lips, then kissed the pad. “Christ, that makes me hot.”
She laughed. “I’m pretty sure it’s never made anyone hot before.”
Warm and wet. Gentle suction and the caress of his tongue. She was suddenly a mass of jangling nerve endings. Her panties dampened. “I really think you better stop that.”
“Does it make you want to go to first base?”
She tilted her head. “What exactly is first base? French-kissing?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding. It’s getting my hand in your bra.”
“No way. That’s second base.”
“Guys don’t care about kissing. They want flesh.”
“But that wouldn’t make sense. Because if putting your hand on my breast—”
“On your nipple.”
“—is first base, then that means second base is getting your hand down my pants. But a home run is going all the way. So what’s third base?”
He put his forehead to hers and laughed, the vibration streaking all the way down through her chest to her legs and even her toes. “Is this like that old Abbott and Costello routine, who’s on first and what’s on second?”
“Actually, we were talking about third.”
He rolled his head to the side and nipped her ear. “Third is using my tongue on you.”
Oh. Ooh. Ahh. She closed her eyes and savored the delicious warmth that spread through her. “I don’t think teenage boys think about that. I don’t think they even know about that.”
He chuckled. “Believe me, they know exactly what it is, and they’ve got some very colorful names to describe it.”
She knew what Andrew had called it, and it wasn’t polite. He hadn’t liked it because Simone got downright embarrassing with her exuberance. “What do they call it?”
This time, Brax laughed outright. “I can’t tell you.”
“I might have to use the terminology in one of my stories.”
“It’s a guy code of honor. I can’t tell.”
“Spoilsport.” She pouted. But he’d made her laugh inside and forget about the mutant ache brought on by too much Andrew-thinking. Andrew-thinking was wrong-thinking at a time like this.
Brax tugged on a lock of her hair. “It’s an advanced technique best left to experts rather than teenagers. So I guess third is getting you to put your hand in my pants.”
She considered his logic. “Maybe.”
“I’m right. I was a teenage boy. Kissing is unimportant. Touching is everything.”
“So you don’t want to kiss me?”
“Kissing is another advanced technique employed by experts designed to make your defenses tumble.”
“Hmm. That sounds like seduction. Maybe you’re not such a nice guy after all.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you.” Then he put his hand on her throat and his fingers on her chin and tipped her chin up. “I want to kiss you. I want to touch you. I want to taste you. I want to be inside you.” His lips brushed hers as he spoke. “But for now, I’ll only do it in my dreams. Until I think I’m gonna die. Until I beg you to put me out of my misery.”
Ooh, she was in trouble. Very big trouble. He made her tingle. He made her want to scream exuberantly, and the consequences be damned.
“I don’t know, Brax,” she whispered, “I might beg you first.”
Chapter Five
Maggie Felman stared at the chalky gray mass on the platter. She’d made Carl his favorite, liver and onions with bacon. Personally, she found it disgusting. Eating organ meat was akin to cannibalism. But she was trying very hard to follow her brother’s suggestions. Just as Tyler said, she was giving Carl the benefit of the doubt.
Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Page 6