Team Go For It: “You look hot. Take advantage of it.”
Team Play It Safe: “Stay away from him.”
Team Go For It: “One dance wouldn’t hurt.”
Team Play It Safe: “He’s doesn’t deserve you.”
Team Go For It: “Who cares? He’s hot!”
Team Play It Safe: “He hurt you once, and he’ll do it again.”
Team Go For It: “It would be worth it to feel his soft lips one more time.”
I was having inner-thought whiplash. I was about to nickname myself Sybil because I was definitely feeling schizophrenic. But I had to admit that the scales were most certainly tipping in Team Go For It’s direction.
A loud catcall whistle sounded behind me. “Damn, girl. You’re wearing that dress.”
I knew who it was before I turned around.
“Thanks,” I said, desperately trying to keep my voice neutral.
I’d known Brady Calhoun my entire life, and just because he’d decided that I was his next victim—er…um, conquest—there was still no reason to be a b-i-t-c-h. After this phase—which, sadly, had lasted much longer than I had anticipated—was over, we would likely go back to being friends, so the last thing I wanted to do was say something I’d have to apologize for later. I hated apologizing. As much as I wished that I hadn’t inherited that particular gene from Gram, at least I had come by it honestly. Grandma Dixie would rather cut off a toe than admit that she had been wrong about something.
“How about a spin on the dance floor?” Brady’s hand rested on my lower back.
Since I’d decided to wear my one and only backless dress because I might or might not have been trying to impress a certain baseball player (I totally was!), Brady’s palm was pressed directly against my skin. It was unsettling.
“No, thanks.” I shifted away from him, and thankfully, his hand fell from my back.
I scanned the packed, newly-renovated barn where the Briggs’ annual Third of July party was being held. I hoped to catch Harmony or Cara’s eye so they could save me from Brady. Could I handle it myself? Sure. But what good were best friends if they didn’t rescue you from unwanted advances?
Luckily, the crowds parted and an angel did come to my aid, but it wasn’t one of my fellow Charlie’s Angels. It was the first angel I’d ever had in my life. Gram.
“Just the girl I was looking for.” Grandma Dixie walked up and kissed me on my cheek. “Can I borrow you for a minute, sweet pea?”
“Yes!” I realized the second the answer sprang from my lips, like a snake from a gag canister, that it had been just a tad on the enthusiastic side. Oh, well. A girl could only do so much, and apparently, keeping my excitement at getting out of another awkward conversation with Brady on the down low was not on the agenda.
“Brady.” Gram nodded in greeting as she slipped her arm through mine. Then we weaved our way through the dense crowd of partygoers until we were across the large barn.
“Thanks, Gram.” Leaning down, I kissed her on her wrinkled cheek as I squeezed the hand resting on my forearm.
Making a tsking sound, she shook her head. “That poor boy doesn’t know whether to wind his butt or scratch his watch. I swear, if you put his brains in a bumblebee, it would fly backwards.”
“He just thinks he wants something he doesn’t,” I said, defending Brady. I knew that he truly believed he was interested in me just as sure as I knew that he really wasn’t.
She waved her hand dismissively—she’d made up her mind about Brady Calhoun and there was nothing I could do to change it. Gram didn’t change her mind. Ever.
“I don’t want to waste another one of the precious moments I have left on this earth talking about Brady Calhoun. I want to talk about this dress.” Lifting my hand in the air, Gram twirled me around then patted my cheek after I’d done my ballerina-like spin. “You look like a fairy princess, sweet girl.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, happy that she thought the dress fell in the whimsical and not the slutty category.
She’d said that the first prom dress I’d picked out would be “lovely on a street walker.” Needless to say, that one hadn’t made it out of the department store.
A glance at my baby-blue scoop-neck sundress left me wondering if a “fairy princess” would show this much cleavage. But hey, I wasn’t about to point that out.
Leaning close, her deep-blue eyes twinkling, she spoke softly, “The girls being on display wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain hometown baseball hero that I heard was sniffin’ around you at the Spoon today, would it?”
My smile grew larger. I might have tried to deny my true intentions for choosing this dress to Harmony, Cara—and maybe even myself—but there was no way I could deny it to Gram. She knew me better than I knew myself—not because I was her great-granddaughter, either. She knew half the town better than they knew themselves.
“It might,” I admitted.
The morning after I’d almost lost my virginity to JJ, I’d told Gram the entire sordid tale over pancakes. The first person most people told things like that to was usually a friend, but that’s because they weren’t lucky enough to have Dixie Rose Porter as a great-grandma. It’s not that Gram agreed with all of my life decisions or even held her tongue when she didn’t, but she never judged me or treated me differently for them. She just loved me. Mistakes and all.
“Good.” She winked at me then peered over my shoulder. “Hello, Jefferson. Well, don’t you look handsome? You clean up real nice.”
I froze, rooted to the spot, my stomach churning like Gram’s old fashioned ice cream maker.
JJ was behind me? How long had he been there? Had he heard Gram’s question? Had he overheard my response?
I’d been doing a darn good job at avoiding him all night. Luckily, since he hadn’t been back to town in so long, quite a few people wanted to catch up. Every time I had noticed him heading towards me, I had been able to skirt away when one person or another had stopped him to talk. It was like an episode of Tom and Jerry. We’d been playing cat and mouse all night.
“Hey, Grandma Dixie. Thanks. You are lookin’ mighty fine tonight, yourself.”
I smiled as Gram blew off the compliment, scrunching her face and shaking her head. She only did that when something affected her. She was always attractive, but she did look especially beautiful that night. Her long, gray hair was down around her shoulders in soft waves, and she was wearing a burgundy dress with a champagne-colored wrap that perfectly highlighted her peaches-and-cream skin.
A hand rested on my back for the second time that night, and this one was unsettling as well, but for an entirely different reason. The warmth of JJ’s long fingers pressing against my bare skin spread tingles through me like a wildfire. A pulse began beating like Morse code between my legs alerting me that, if any more stimulation occurred, there was a very real possibility I would spontaneously combust. Or, at the very least, have a completely inappropriate orgasm in a room full of people while standing right beside Gram.
A flush flared up my cheeks as my entire body melted. How in the world was it fair that, when any other man touched me, it was meh-okay at best and skin-crawling at worst, but when JJ touched me, my body instantly came apart? It was like he was a superhero and that was his super power.
JJ the Baseball Man, giving girls orgasms with just one pitch.
His warm breath fanned down my neck, and my heart ceased beating. I held my breath as he said in a low, raspy voice, “You look beautiful tonight, Pip.”
Pip. That word washed over me like cold water. Flush gone. Tingles evaporated. Body tensed. Mind clear.
Game on, JJ the Baseball Man.
Chapter 6
JJ
“It’s like tryin’ to scratch your ear with your elbow.”
~ Grandma Dixie
The second the name I’d called Destiny since she’d been in pigtails and reminded me of one of my all-time favorite characters, Pippi Longstocking, left my lips, I knew I’d just stuck
my boot in my mouth. But, before I’d gone and stepped in it, Destiny’s body responded beneath my touch. A tremor ran up her spine, her lips parted as she sucked in a sharp breath, and her eyelids grew heavy—all very good signs when you touched someone.
I hadn’t even thought about what to say when I’d opened my big mouth. The only thing I’d been able to think about all night was how damn beautiful she looked. I’d seen her over at a table with her cupcakes when I’d gotten here almost two hours ago, and every minute since then, I’d been trying, and failing, to make my way over to her. It had been a good hour before I’d realized she was intentionally dodging me. That’s when I’d gotten the brilliant plan to enlist the one person Destiny would follow anywhere without question.
Grandma Dixie.
It had taken some doing, but I needed to get this conversation out of the way anyway, so I figured, two birds. Dixie had had some straightforward and tough questions for me. It didn’t surprise me that she knew what had happened the night of Destiny’s prom. Those two were closer than any mother, daughter, sister, or best-friend duo I knew. Now Grandma Dixie knew that I felt horrible about what had happened all those years ago and that I wanted to make things right with Destiny, starting with getting her on the dance floor. She signed on as a co-conspirator in my plan, which—like those MasterCard commercials said—was priceless.
“Thank you,” Destiny snipped as she began walking away from me.
On instinct, I gently wrapped my fingers around her delicate wrist. “Dance with me.”
“No, thanks.” There was a tremor in her sweet voice. Clearly Destiny was trying to sound casual and unaffected—upbeat, even—but she wasn’t doing that great of a job at it.
Grandma Dixie winked at me before leaning over to Destiny and whispering loud enough that I could hear, “Brady’s hightailing it over here. You may want to fill up your dance card with the lesser of the two evils.”
‘Lesser of the two evils’ was not the highest praise—but I would take it.
“Fine.” Destiny stiffened as she shot her gaze up to me. “One. Dance.”
That hadn’t been the most flattering acceptance—but, again, beggars can’t be choosers, and I would take it.
Now that she wasn’t a flight risk, I dropped her wrist, placed my arm around her waist, and led her to a secluded alcove in a dimly-lit area of the dance floor.
The timing couldn’t have been better. The second I pulled her close to me and she rested her hands on my shoulders, the song I’d requested from the DJ began playing. It was “More Than Miles” by Brantley Gilbert, who happened to be one of Destiny’s favorite artists.
I’d listened to that song more times than I could count while I’d been ridin’ on the bus, headed to one city or another. When he sang that there were more than miles in his rearview, it reminded me so much of the feelings I had for Destiny. These past four years, I’d felt like, even though I’d played to the best of my ability, my heart hadn’t been in it. There was no way it could have been since my heart was still in Wishing Well, in the hands of the girl I was holding in my arms now.
The song wasn’t a traditional slow song, but that didn’t stop me from gently swaying back and forth. I intentionally kept my hold loose, putting a small amount of distance between us. One wrong move, pushing her even slightly too fast, would send her stomping off this dance floor so fast it’d make my head spin. Slow and steady. That was the pace I needed to go.
“I’m sorry.” I figured that an apology was not the worst way to start. Lord knew I had a lot of apologizing to do.
Destiny’s eyes shot to mine blazing with challenge. “For what?”
My lips twitched, but I did not let them turn up into the smile that wanted to break out. That would not go well. This particular girl would not appreciate that I thought she was so damn cute when she was irritated, but that didn’t take away from the fact that she was. Still—better to keep it to myself.
“Calling you Pip,” I figured I would start with my latest. “I didn’t mean to. It slipped out. I honestly just wanted to tell you how amazing you look tonight.”
When a tiny wrinkle creased between her brows, I knew she was wrestling with whether or not to accept my apology. I waited while the jury was out.
Finally, she sighed. “It’s fine. It’s just a name. A stupid name, but I shouldn’t let it bother me.”
I was tempted to pinch myself because must’a been dreaming. That admission had been borderline acceptance that Destiny had been in the wrong. Never in my life had I thought that would happen, so I wasn’t sure what to say to that. No way had I expected that to go so easily.
“Wow.” Her blue eyes lit up, and a smug grin pulled at her full, pouty lips. “So that’s what it takes to shut you up, huh?”
Shutting up was the last thing I planned on doing. “I asked the DJ to play this song because I listened to it hundreds of times, thinking of you. In fact, I’ve never stopped thinking about you. Missing you. Wanting you.”
Again, that wrinkle appeared on her forehead as her baby blues grew as large as baseballs. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. It seemed that Destiny Porter was speechless, which did not happen often. I thought about repeating the same sentiment she’d just said to me, but instead of gloating I decided to simply enjoy it. Her long, dark lashes blinked up at me several times as her breath came in uneven pants and her hands felt like they’d gone all rigor mortis on my shoulders.
I had a truckload of other things about the past, present and possible future I was dying to tell her. But, knowing that now wasn’t the time, I decided I would let my words sink in while the lyrics drifted through the air. I gave her time to process while she stared up at me, looking more confused than a baby in a titty bar.
Finally, when her gaze softened, I flattened my hands over the velvety skin of her lower back and pulled her body against mine, closing the few inches of space that separated us.
She came willingly, but her posture remained stiff. I could feel her heart pounding as her chest rose and fell against mine. Her feet shuffled as we moved to the music, but the rest of her body stayed rigid as a mannequin.
Then, finally, she rested her head on my shoulder and swayed her hips against mine. When she melted into me I felt like I’d hit a walk-off homerun.
The scene was straight out of a movie and the song was the soundtrack as the music seamlessly transitioned into another Gilbert song, “Fall Into Me.” It could not have been more perfect if I’d planned it myself. The lyrics of the song mirrored what I felt to a tee.
As I held Destiny in my arms on the dance floor, the entire world faded away. All that existed was the two of us. My thumb rubbed circles on her smooth skin as I tightened my hold on her. A feeling I didn’t even recognize flooded me, mixing with the intense arousal flowing through my bloodstream.
At first, I thought the foreign emotion was excitement, but it was more than that. Then I figured it was happiness because I was finally holding the only girl I’d ever wanted in my arms. It was definitely part anticipation for what would happen next. And I was feeling all three of those things: excitement, happiness, and anticipation. But I knew what those felt like, and this was different.
Then it hit me. It was contentment. It was feeling like I was in the exact right place at the exact right time, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I couldn’t remember ever having felt like that.
My body was responding naturally to the fullness of Destiny’s breasts pressed against me. Her hipbone brushing mine as we moved to the music. I was so hard that, if I didn’t have a permanent imprint of my zipper on my shaft, I would be shocked. But it would be worth it because this was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Chapter 7
Destiny
“You can’t tell how deep a well is by measuring the length of the pump handle.”
~ Grandma Dixie
As we swayed together in time to the music I tried to regain my bearings. JJ had thrown me so off-balance that
I wasn’t sure which way was up. His little news flash had been a serious shock to my system. I had no idea how to wrap my mind around the statement he’d just made or the fact that being in his arms felt better than a full-body massage after pullin’ seven double shifts at the Spoon.
For a second, I’d thought he was joking. But, when I’d searched his eyes, which Gram always maintained were the windows to the soul, all I’d seen was openness. Vulnerability. Sincerity. Three words I had never in my life associated with JJ. In fact, if someone would have told me that he was going to display even one of those traits, I would have laughed in their face and asked what drug they were on.
Jefferson James Briggs was a lot of things. Talented. Sexy. Arrogant. Sexy. Funny. Sexy. Annoying. Sexy… Did I mention that he was sexy? Open, vulnerable, and sincere just weren’t in his DNA. Or so I’d thought.
Since he’d walked into the Spoon this afternoon, he’d been acting strange. I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it before now. But, now, I knew what was different. He seemed raw. No bravado. No cocky a-s-s-ness.
That meant that my heart, which had already been shattered by him and was not fully mended, was in serious danger of being totally demolished. My only viable option here was to guard that sucker like it was the Hope Diamond—which meant some protective walls clearly had to be erected immediately. An internal security detail needed to be on the job around the clock. No breaches. No break-ins. No surrender.
And I was going to get right on putting all of those measures into place, too…after this song ended. Because being in JJ’s arms felt more right, more perfect, than any other moment in my life.
Closing my eyes, I absorbed the emotion radiating off JJ and the intoxicating feeling of the roughened pad of his thumb rubbing circles on the base of my lower back. He began softly singing along to the song, and I let myself indulge in listening to the words as his lips brushed against my ear.
As his deep voice serenaded me with the lyrics of the song, talking about this not being a race and how he was playing for keeps, his mouth grazed my sensitive skin with each word, sending all kinds of seductive signals throughout my body. Warning alarms started beeping and flashing in my head. Sensory overload. This was too much to take. I needed to get as far away from this man and the sex appeal he effortlessly exuded as fast as possible.
Teasing Destiny (Wishing Well, Texas #1) Page 4