Buck grinned in her direction, seemingly unaware of the tension in the room and held open the door for her walk out on the deck. “Amen,” he said, following her out.
“Hey. There’s only seven pieces of cake here,” Neil said from behind her as she snagged herself one of the Adirondack rockers against the railing. She tossed her denim jacket in to the seat.
“There are only seven of us,” she replied.
If she sat here, on her own… Yeah this was a much better choice. There would be enough space at the table for everyone to be comfortable and not crowded and she wouldn’t be tempted to sit next to Cort. She wanted to, but this was better for both of them. It had been a stressful day, them being thrust back together without warning and she’d told him to take some time and figure out how he wanted to handle things. She might want him just as much today as she did back in that Savannah bar—maybe even more—but she wasn’t going to force this. If something was going to happen, he was going to have to let her know.
She nodded to herself, her resolve strong and intact. She would sit here, have dinner, and not have to sit thigh to with him, smelling his clean and very expensive aftershave scent, listening to him breathe, not so accidently touching his hand as she reached for something she didn’t really want just to have an excuse to feel his skin.
“But there’s usually eight pieces.” Neil pouted, still on the cake issue.
“Someone can have mine. Blue already tried to kill me with a piece earlier.”
“Wine?” Rosie asked, holding up a bottle and glass in front of Blue’s face while Blue glared with narrowed eyes in Cort’s direction.
“Full to the brim,” she muttered.
“Maybe you need your own bottle, then.”
Blue stuck her tongue out. “Maybe I do. Got any of Muscadine red?”
“I’ve got the bottle you brought back from North Carolina a few months ago.”
“That’ll work. I’ll bring you two bottles next time to make up for it.”
“Rosie prefers blush anyway,” Decker intoned from the other side of the round table.
“I guess you should know.”
“Ha! Guess I should.” Decker leaned in and kissed Rosie on the cheek before settling in at the table. His plate was so full Blue was amazed it hadn’t fallen apart from the weight of the food. He popped his beer and took a long swig. The edges of his shoulder length hair blew in the slight breeze, and she could see the tattoos over the edge of his T-shirt collar. He really was a good-looking man.
Blue turned her attention back to her friend and smiled. She hadn’t seen Rosie so happy, so light and easygoing in a long, long time, and she couldn’t get over the transformation. Rosie’s concerns about losing herself, about losing her strength, about the people in their small town learning about her naughty desires had all turned out unfounded, and Blue couldn’t be more thrilled. Decker was good for Rosie.
“B? Yoo-hoo! Where are you, woman?”
Blue felt the heat creep up into her face at being lost in thought again and staring, though she was grateful it wasn’t Cort she was staring at her this time. “Blood sugar drop. Need to eat.”
“Uh-huh.” Rosie tapped Blue’s nose as one would a naughty child. “Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you quite as well as I do.”
Neil stepped into the conversation, grabbing a beer from the bucket of ice at Blue’s feet. “Right? She’s full of shit and thinks we’re gonna buy it.”
Blue looked from one friend to the other. “Up to nothing, my ass,” she muttered. She flipped her hair over her shoulder in the most dramatic fashion she could muster and stalked off to the portable table that had been set up with all the food. She didn’t have to take their teasing. Not on an empty stomach at least.
“Why aren’t you going to sit at the table with your friends?”
Blue looked up and to her right. Crap. Though she really hadn’t needed to look at him after he spoke. She just couldn’t help it. Weakness. “Who said I’m not?” She loaded her burger up: cheese, lettuce, tomato, a little mayo, and steak sauce. Following the building masterpiece on her plate came a spoonful of potato salad and one of maple bacon baked beans.
“You put your jacket in a chair when you first came outside and well, now the table seems to be a bit full.”
She looked over her shoulder to see that indeed Caroline, Buck, and Neil sat on one side while Rosie sat on the other. Decker was sprawled on the other side of the table with Rosie. With the way everyone was so spread out, there wasn’t room for either she or Cort unless someone chose to move and slide over. That wasn’t going to happen, and they weren’t fooling anyone, least of all her. She turned back to filling her plate. “Why do you care where I sit?”
He shrugged. “Was just a question.”
And it was. Her easygoing mannerisms and light attitude had disappeared the second she stepped back onto the lit path from her earlier talk with him in the woods. She didn’t like it either. She wasn’t acting like herself at all, and she was taking it out on him. She was acting all surly, she was acting like… Like him.
Well, no more. It was going to stop right now.
“I knew there wouldn’t be room for everyone. You can have the last spot, though you might have to shove your friend over.” She hoped he heard the change in her voice, the softening. She did. She also felt it in the ease of tension in her shoulders. She knew herself well and didn’t need to be rude to him just because he made her feel things she hadn’t felt in such a long time.
She wanted him, wanted to get beneath his buttoned-up exterior and get under his skin. She wanted to get naked with him, see him all sweaty and sated from sex again. She wanted to feel those arms around her in the dark, wake up with him inside her at dawn. She wasn’t going to get any of that if she were as short tempered with him as he was intent on being with her.
“That’s all right. I’ll just sit here with you.”
To emphasize his words, he dragged an identical chair over next to hers and slid down into it. She set her plate on the arm of her chair. It was precariously perched at best. A good gust of wind and… She looked down at him. His chicken sandwich was halfway to his mouth, and their eyes locked. She smirked; he blushed. Point for her. “Want me to get you a beer?”
He nodded. “Would be great, thanks.”
Blue went inside the cabin to grab the bottle of red wine from Rosie’s small wine fridge. The automatic wine opener took less than a half second to operate. She inhaled the heady aroma of the alcohol and sighed happily, thankful that her bottled friend had enough decency to mind its own business and do exactly what it was meant to do. Be drunk.
Back outside, she took a bottle of beer from the ice bucket, a plastic cup from the table, and promptly ignored the curious and far too interested looks she was getting from Rosie and Neil. Buck and Decker had their eyes trained on Cort, who was stuffing his face, also ignoring the curious stares.
She rather liked that and found it endearing. Kudos to the both of them.
She sat and handed over the beer. “They’re going to be talking and asking questions, you know that, right?”
He swallowed his mouthful and took a long swallow of beer. “Yeah, I know. They’ve always been too nosy for their own good.”
“I thought only women and gay men were like that.”
Cort laughed, and the sound slid down her spine like warm, thick honey. She followed the feeling with a long pull of wine from the bottle, completely forgoing the cup.
“Thirsty?”
“Something like that.” Thirsty, hungry, horny. Take your pick, Mr. Electrician Man. “Why are you sitting with me? You were ticked off out in the woods, jealous over Neil, unhappy with everything you know about me…”
“You mean besides a lack of seating options at the table?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Eh. Guess I don’t dislike you as much as I thought.”
“No reason for you to dislike me at all. I’ve done nothing to
you. Okay, well, long ago I did, but nothing recent and—”
“You make me want you.”
Blue slid him a sideways glance before turning her head to look him full in the face. “I don’t make you do anything, Cort. If you want me, that’s of your own doing, not mine.”
“And that’s where we differ in our train of thought.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. The longer no words passed between them, the more she wanted words, the more she wanted to hear his voice rumble over her. “You don’t smile anymore. I remember you smiling a lot that day. Smiles that had nothing to do with sex either,” she clarified.
“I smile a lot.”
“Not at me.” He grinned at her suddenly, and she came close to dropping her plate at the way it transformed his face, the way it brightened his eyes. It was a goofy grin, but she fell for it immediately. “Oh that’s enticing.”
“I aim to please.” And that comment could be taken so many different ways. His smile dropped. “I didn’t come here for complications. I came out here to see my friends, to listen to their new business idea, and to see about doing the work on your house.”
“Way to let a girl down gently,” she murmured.
“I didn’t realize I needed to let you down gently. I didn’t realize I needed to let you down at all.”
“You’re right, you don’t.”
“The way I see it, we can do this one of two ways.”
“Do what?” Blue wasn’t used to being confused, but the more he talked, the more confused she became. She wondered if he knew it and if he was doing it on purpose. He wasn’t a simple man to understand, and for the first time in her adult life, she wasn’t sure her body and her mind knew what was best for her in this moment. Simple, uncomplicated men interested in having fun were her style, and Cort was anything but. He might have been that way at one time in his life, but it didn’t appear he was anymore.
“I can do the work on your place and we can have minimal contact, or…” He finished off his beer. “Or we can have sex, fuck like a couple of bunnies to get it out of our system, and then I can do the work on your place without this attraction hanging over our heads.” He leaned close. “You told me in the woods to let you know. Well, I am. I’m hard. I feel out of control. I want to sink into you again, to reacquaint myself with the feel of you under me. I want to know if it’s still there, still as real as it seems. I want to impress myself on your brain and body that no matter what happens in the future, that no matter who you’re with, you see and feel me. I want to ruin you for any other man, Blue.
Blue searched his eyes for any hint of his being insincere, but she saw nothing other than the lust she knew must be mirrored in her own gaze. She licked her lips and tried to find her voice, the one that was steady and strong and sure. “Is that what I did to you? Ruin you for other women?”
She winked and smiled a slow, sultry smile at his gaping expression, at the flare of heat she saw surge.
Checkmate.
…
She was drunk. She’d emptied the one bottle of wine she had on the deck and was trying her damnedest to open a second one, only she couldn’t get the opener lined up right.
Cort had been watching her on and off, honestly more on, while catching up with what had been going on in both Buck and Decker’s lives over the last year. The three of them were never out of touch for long, and Cort was amazed at all his two friends had gone through. Neither were like him in the relationship department, meaning neither avoided relationships if they came along, but the fact that both had found solid, real relationships, found real love and mutual kinks surprised him. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it did. It took a pretty big helping hand of fate and luck to land with just the right woman.
That thought had his gaze straying to Blue again.
Buck and Decker hadn’t gone looking for the relationships they’d found, but neither balked at them either. Cort on the other hand was stretched tight from his throat to his dick with every thought of Blue. She made him want to runaway far and fast. She also made him want run toward her as fast as he could too.
“Maybe you should go help her.”
Cort turned his head. Neil. He didn’t know what to think about the other man. He was Blue’s ex-lover, but then again, so was Cort. Not that he had anything against Neil either. He didn’t know him and given Blue and Cort’s history, or lack thereof, there was no basis for jealousy. At the same time, though, Cort wanted nothing more than to beat the hell out of Neil for ever having touched Blue. “And just what do you think I should help her do?”
“Well, for starters, you could try to keep her from hurting herself. She looks about ready to do battle with the opener.”
Cort refocused his attention on Blue. He nearly laughed out loud at the face she was making, part curiosity, part frustration. Neil was right. “Why don’t you go help her?”
“Because it’s not me she wants.”
“So? I don’t see how that makes a difference.”
Neil laughed and gave Cort the once up and down glance. “It does. Trust me on this.”
He looked between Blue and Neil for a minute before nodding. Against his better judgment, Cort took a step in her direction. Rosie had done the same, and they both stopped in the middle of the room, staring at one another. She suddenly smiled and quickly turned around and headed back to where she’d come from, leaving him to rescue either the wine opener or Blue. He wasn’t sure how he felt about all this. Everyone seemed to know how he felt about Blue and all seemed okay with it, even to the point of helping it happen.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that either.
Blue looked up at him when he arrived at her side. Her brows were scrunched down, and she held up the wine bottle opener. “It doesn’t wanna work.”
Her words were slurred only slightly but enough. He tried hard not to smile, not to smirk, not to give her any indication of just how adorable he found her in this state of inebriation. “Is that so?”
“Uh-huh. It is bein’ mean to me.” She shoved the device at him. “You try. Make it work.”
Cort bit back a smile. “No, I think it’s time to give up. You’ve had enough.”
“No. Wan’ more. Now.”
“I know, but how about we get you home instead?”
“Don’ wan’ go.”
Cort took the opener from her and laid it on the table before steering her gently toward the front door of the cabin. He caught her around the shoulder when her step faltered and did his best to ignore the pleasure at holding her close. “I think she’s calling it a night. Neil, you should take her home.” He tried to pass her along, but a tug on his shirt had Cort looking down at the woman he was holding up.
“You.”
“Me what?”
“Home. Take me.”
“You rode here with Neil, Blue. He’ll make sure you get there.”
She tugged harder on his shirt. “No. You.”
“I think the decision has been made, Cort. Looks like you’re taking her home,” Neil interjected, not bothering to hide his smile.
Cort sighed and looked around at everyone. Buck and Decker were looking away, far too interested in a knot in the wood along the wall, Caroline was busy in the kitchen, and Rosie, along with Neil, was eyeing his hold on Blue and both grinning. “I swear you all planned this,” he grated out.
“No one could plan on her getting drunk.”
“No’ durunk.”
Neil smoothed Blue’s curls away from her face. “Yeah, honey, you are. At least a little bit.”
“Oh.” Her brows furrowed. “Sshh. Don’ tell Cor’.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper as she talked to Neil, but then she turned to Cort and poked him in the chest. “I ‘m no’ durunk.”
“No, no, I’m sure you’re not. Let’s go.” He fixed Rosie and Neil with a stare meant to cower them. It didn’t work. They just kept smiling. “I’ll deal with you two later.” To Neil alone, he said, “You’ll be right behind us?�
�� He was both hopeful and not. The smart thing was for Neil to follow along and take care of Blue, for Cort to go back to Decker’s place, for distance to be put between them for the next couple of days.
“Oh. Oh yes, definitely. Right behind you.”
Cort was sure Neil’s emphatic nod was just for show. He ushered Blue out the door with a huff, guided her down the steps and into his truck. She stared up at him with big, round eyes as he secured the seatbelt across her body and all but ignored the throbbing in his own at the feel of her curves beneath his hands.
“You okay?”
She only nodded, and he stepped back to shut the door. He knew they were being watched from the porch, and though it would have made him feel better to flip them all off, he wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction.
Without turning to look at the house, he walked around the front of the truck, got in and started the engine, then pulled around the dark blue, late-model Mustang blocking the drive. It must be Blue’s since she and Neil were the last ones to arrive. And it fit her: something fast, sleek, powerful. He could see her in it, tearing down the road with the windows down, her dark curls blowing in the wind, the radio blasting with her singing along. In spite of himself, the visual made him smile.
Once out on the two-lane highway headed away from the little town and toward Blue’s plantation, he took a couple of deep breaths and pressed two buttons on the side of the door to let some fresh air in. It would do his passenger some good.
She reached across the inside of the cab and tugged on his shirt, much as she’d done in the cabin.
“Cort?”
“Yeah?”
“I…I don’ norm’ly get drunk.”
“It’s okay. We all do it sometimes. Don’t worry about it.”
She took the deep breath this time. “No’ me.”
“Then why did you?”
“You faul’.”
He glanced over at her. She had sleepy eyes, and her face was soft in the low glow of the dashboard lights. The night around them was completely dark, giving the appearance and feel that they were the only two people in the world.
Forever in Blue Jeans Page 5
