“What?”
“You didn’t notice?”
He picked up his hamburger and took a bite. Shrugging, he chewed and repeated, “Notice what?”
“Unbelievable. But then why would you?” Emma asked, not really expecting an answer. “You’ve probably affected women like that your whole life.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The redheaded waitress?” Emma coaxed. “The one who wants to have your child—here on the table?”
He laughed and picked up a French fry. “Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a little?”
She stabbed a forkful of lettuce and chicken and really considered stabbing him in the hand just for the heck of it. No wonder he’d never paid attention to her. He had women crawling all over him all the time. The man was a babe magnet. Any female between the ages of fifteen and fifty would turn for another look at him. “No, I’m not.”
Connor shrugged. “She probably thinks I’m Aidan. He eats in here a lot.”
She just stared at him. She’d never had any trouble at all telling the triplets apart. Sure, they were identical, but there was a little something different about each of them that made all the difference. With Connor, it was the way the right corner of his mouth lifted when he didn’t really want to smile but couldn’t help himself.
“What was it like?” she asked. “Growing up with two other people who look just like you?”
His mouth curved, just the way she liked it.
“Fun. We had a great time, the three of us. And Liam, too, before he went into the seminary.” He paused and looked at her. “I can’t imagine growing up like you did. An only child.”
She lifted one shoulder and took another bite of her salad. “It was okay. My dad and I got along fine, just the two of us.”
“Yeah, I bet you did. But you didn’t have somebody to trade places with at exam time.”
“You didn’t.”
“Sure we did.” Connor laughed and his eyes flashed with memories. “Aidan’s the brain. So come chemistry finals—he took all of our tests.”
Emma laughed and shook her head. “I can’t believe you got away with that.”
“We did. For the first two years of high school. After that the teacher wised up. Noticed that all three of us answered every question the same way.”
“What happened when you got caught?”
He winced, then winked at her. “Let’s just say our mother is more than a match for her sons. None of us saw the outside world for a solid month.”
“Even Liam?” Emma reached for her ice tea. “He was innocent.”
“Yeah, but he was the oldest. Mom figured he should have kept us out of trouble.”
While Connor talked about his brothers, Emma watched him and tried to remember that she wasn’t supposed to be getting more deeply involved in his life. This was just a seduction. Pure and simple. A plot to get him to lose a bet and be sorry he’d ever dismissed her.
But he smiled and she forgot about her plan. He laughed and she just enjoyed the loud, rolling sound of it pouring over her. Beneath the table, his foot brushed her leg, and she felt the punch of electrical awareness dance up her calf, past her thigh to simmer in a spot that was already too hot for comfort.
He felt it, too; she sensed it.
His gaze locked with hers across the table, and the humor in his eyes faded slowly away to be replaced by a slow burn of hunger that scorched her, even at a distance. “What’re we doing, Emma?”
“Having lunch?” she asked, swallowing hard and trying to steady her breathing.
“What else?”
“Is there something else, Connor?”
“I didn’t want there to be, but it’s damn hard to ignore.”
A spurt of disappointment shot through her but didn’t do a thing toward cooling the fires within. “Well, that was flattering.”
“Emma, we’re friends.” He leaned across the table and took her hand in his. His thumb scraped her palm until the tingles of sensation speared through her.
She blew out a breath, but didn’t let go of his hand. She liked the feel of his fingers entwined with hers. Liked the heat she found pulsing in him and the flames awakening in herself. “And friends don’t see each other naked?”
“Not usually,” he admitted, through gritted teeth.
She nodded slowly and, just as slowly, reluctantly, pulled her hand free of his. “Then we’ll just have to stop being friends, won’t we, Connor?”
CHAPTER SIX
STOP BEING FRIENDS?
Emma’s words hit Connor like a fist to the gut.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid,” he muttered, his hand tingling with emptiness now that she’d let go of him. He rubbed the tips of his fingers together, as if he could still feel the silky slide of her skin on his. Damn it. He didn’t have so many close friends that he was willing to lose one. Especially this one. He and Emma always had a good time together. They could talk about anything. He could laugh with her. Tell her what he was thinking.
When the new recruits in his charge were starting to drive him up the wall with frustration, Connor knew he could go to Emma’s and forget about the world for a while. When his brothers made him nuts, she laughed with him about it. When the rest of the world looked less than warm and welcoming, Emma’s smile set it right.
And he wasn’t ready or willing to give that up.
“You can’t always get what you want,” she said with a little shrug that nudged the strap of her coveralls down her left shoulder.
He scowled at her. What was that supposed to mean? Did she want to end their friendship and try something different? Or was she trying to tell him that she wasn’t interested in sex with him?
Why couldn’t women be as clear as men?
“Don’t start quoting song lyrics at me.”
“A little touchy, aren’t we?” she asked.
“Not touchy, just surprised you’re so damn willing to toss our friendship for a quick roll in the hay.”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
He actually felt his scowl deepen. “Then just what the hell are you saying?”
“Not much,” she said, and her voice was cool, amused, even. “Just that if you want to go to bed, we’ll stop being friends. If you don’t, we won’t.”
“Oh, so it’s all up to me?” He didn’t believe that for a damn minute. There wasn’t a woman alive who wasn’t completely at the wheel of any relationship. And all men knew it. They just pretended otherwise to hang on to their pride.
Which was precisely why he’d always avoided commitment like the plague. Once a woman got a good hold on you, things changed. Your life wasn’t your own anymore. You were going to chick movies regularly and worrying about putting coasters under your bottle of beer.
Not worth the effort. Leave the married life for people like Brian. For Connor, it was love ’em and leave ’em—quick.
She shook her head, and he watched that thick, honey-gold braid swing from side to side like a pendulum. “Up entirely to you? Not a chance. Look, you just said yourself you didn’t want there to be anything else between us.”
“Yeah, but—” Not fair to use a man’s own words against him.
“So, there’s no problem, right?”
He scraped one hand over his face. Something was wrong. Somewhere or other he’d lost the thread of this conversation, and he wasn’t sure any more which side he should be defending. Damn it, a man needed a battle plan to deal with a woman. Any woman.
Especially, it seemed, this woman.
Emma grinned, tilted her head to one side to stare at him, and her thick, blond braid swung over her right shoulder. He wanted to reach across the table, undo the rubber band at the end of it and comb her hair free, burying his fingers in it.
“Do I make you nervous, Connor?”
“No.” The answer came sharp and swift, and he had to wonder if he was trying to convince Emma or himself. Dismissing the idea entirely,
he picked up his hamburger, took a bite and chewed like a man on a mission. However he’d lost control of this conversation, he could still get it back.
After he swallowed, he said, “I’m not nervous.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Problem? Where to start? How about sitting across from his friend in a lunch diner and knowing he’d need about twenty minutes before he could stand up and walk out of there without embarrassing himself? How about the fact that he could smell her perfume—something a little different today, flowers and…lemons, but just as intoxicating.
He couldn’t tell her any of that. Just as he couldn’t tell her that he’d been lying awake at nights imagining her naked. That would damage the very friendship he was fighting so hard not to lose.
This was all his brothers’ faults. Every last one of ’em. Brian being so happily married now—and delighting in telling Connor and Aidan about all the sex he was currently enjoying. Aidan being so determined to being the last man standing. And even Liam, standing on the sidelines, laughing at all of them as they tried to do for three months what he’d committed to for a lifetime.
He never should have made the stupid bet.
It’d been a pain in the butt from the get-go.
And it was only getting worse.
“Damn it, Em,” he muttered thickly, fighting past the knot of need lodged in his throat, “it’s the bet. You know that’s what’s behind all of this.”
“Uh-huh.”
He frowned at her less-than-convinced reply. When she took another bite of salad, then delicately licked a drop of dressing off her bottom lip, every cell in Connor’s body lit up like a fireworks show. Inwardly groaning, he squashed the lightninglike flash of need bursting to life inside him.
“Look,” he said, leaning toward her and lowering his voice to be sure none of the other diners could overhear, “we both know this bet is making me nuts. We both know that we’re friends, nothing more.”
She nodded and smiled. “You bet.”
He inhaled sharply, deeply. His stomach knotted and he glanced down at his hamburger in sudden distaste. He couldn’t force a bite down his tight throat now if someone had a gun to his head. Pushing the plate aside, he leaned both forearms on the table and held her gaze with his own. “I like you, Emma.”
“Thanks, Connor,” she said, daintily picking a piece of chicken out of her salad and popping it into her mouth. “I like you, too.”
“Exactly!” He slapped one hand against the tabletop with enough force to make the iced tea glasses jump and shudder.
Several people turned to look at him, and Emma laughed. He didn’t care.
“That’s my point.” He glanced around warily, then lowered his voice again. He felt like a secret agent in a bad movie. “We like each other too much to climb into bed together.”
“Okay.”
He sat back, stunned. “Okay?”
She shrugged again and this time the tiny spaghetti strap of her little tank top slid off her shoulder to join the strap of her coveralls. Connor gritted his teeth.
“Sure,” she was saying, and he blinked away the haze of pure, one-hundred-proof lust clouding his mind so he could listen. “I mean it’s no biggie to me. If you’d rather not, then fine.”
“Just like that.”
She smiled. “Did you expect me to throw myself across the table and plead with you to take me now, big boy?”
Maybe a little, he admitted silently. He’d thought sure she was feeling what he was feeling. That she’d wanted him as much as he had her. But apparently not. And why didn’t that make him feel better?
“Sorry to disappoint you, Connor,” she said, and idly lifted both straps off her upper arm to slide them into place. “But I’ll survive if we don’t hit the sheets together.”
“I know that,” he said, and wondered how in the hell this had all turned around. When had he set himself up to be turned down? When had she become the one to say no?
“Good.” She took another bite of her salad and if she hadn’t just a second ago told him she wasn’t disappointed by the thought of not going to bed with him—Connor would have thought she was licking her lip deliberately. She did it slowly—tantalizingly slowly—and his body, still at DefCon 1 lit up like a demilitarized zone during a night landing.
She picked up her iced tea, took a long drink, and Connor’s gaze fixed on the line of her throat. His vision blurred.
Then she set her glass down, glanced at her watch and said, “Oops! Gotta run.”
“Now? You’re leaving now?”
“I really have to,” she explained, gathering up her brown leather purse and slinging it over her left shoulder. “But you go ahead and stay. The shop’s only a block away. I’ll walk it.”
When he didn’t say anything, she stopped scooting toward the edge of the booth. “Connor? Was there something else you wanted to talk about?”
“No,” he grumbled. “Nothing at all.”
“Okay, good.” She leaned toward him and smiled. “I’ve got a bad carburetor coming into the shop in twenty minutes, so I have to be there.”
“Right.” He grabbed his own iced tea glass and cradled it between his palms, letting the cold seep into his skin, his bones.
She stood up and flashed him another smile as he looked up at her. Then she dropped one hand onto his shoulder and he swore he could feel the warmth of her skin right through the fabric of his shirt.
“I’ll see you later, okay? And thanks for lunch.”
“Right. Later.” He nodded and swallowed hard.
She walked away and he couldn’t help himself. He turned on the booth seat to watch her go and groaned as his gaze locked onto the curve of her behind. Grumbling under his breath, he turned back around and squirmed uncomfortably on the bench seat.
Rebecca, the friendly waitress, hustled right over and asked, “Can I get you anything else?”
He didn’t even meet her eyes this time. Instead he drained his iced tea, then handed her the empty glass. He wasn’t going anywhere until his body cooled down. Shouldn’t take more than an hour—and since he couldn’t very well take a cold shower, he’d have to settle for cold drinks. And maybe he should just pour the next one in his lap where it would do the most good.
“Bring me another one of these, would you? And make it a large.”
She frowned, but he didn’t notice.
Or care.
LATER THAT EVENING Connor drove from his apartment to the base. Sick of his own company, he’d decided to check in with his assistant drill sergeant. Now, watching the young troops trying to settle into life as Marines, he at least had something else to think about besides himself.
And they were young.
Most of them still in their teens, they were driven to the recruit depot at Parris Island at night. Brought across the long road winding into the base past swamp water and marsh grasses in the dark. Deliberately. Not to disorient, but to have them connect to this world almost instantly. To remind them that they and their fellow recruits were now a team. A family. That they’d become a part of something much bigger than they’d ever known before, and that the life they left behind had no place here.
Standing in the corner of the barracks, Connor watched DI Jeff McDonald striding up and down the aisle separating two long rows of bunks. Each new recruit stood in front of their beds, heads newly shaved, narrow shoulders thrown back and chins jutted out.
“Boy,” McDonald shouted, stopping in front of a tall, thin kid, “did I just see you smile?”
“Sir! No, sir!”
Connor smothered a grin and watched as McDonald feigned disgust.
“You think you’re going to a party, recruit?”
“Sir! No, sir!”
McDonald leaned in closer, his nose just a hair’s breadth from the kid’s. He pointed to the chevrons on his sleeve. “Then you better stop smiling recruit, or I’m gonna think you think I’m funny lookin.’”
The kid looked horrified by t
he idea.
“Do you think I’m funny lookin,’ recruit?”
“Sir! No, sir!”
Connor watched from the shadows and silently approved. McDonald was good at his job. He’d intimidate the recruits, teach them what they needed to know to survive, and in the end he’d have their respect. And he would have turned out a new company of Marines.
Smiling, Connor told himself the kid would learn. They all would. Or they wouldn’t make the grade. But most of them would. They were here because they wanted something more and, generally, were willing to work for it.
Connor shook his head, shoved his hands into his pockets and slipped out the side door. The summer night was warm, the air felt thick with the scent of the South and the humidity that was such a part of life here.
He stopped and tilted his head back to stare up at the black, star-studded sky. Things were running as they should be here. He wasn’t needed. McDonald didn’t have time to talk, and he wasn’t in the mood to hunt down any of his other friends.
He still had days to go on his leave time. Hell, he should be itching to get into town. To grab a beer. Play some pool at the Off Duty.
Connor winced. He had the distinct feeling he’d never again be able to stroll into that bar without his brain replaying the image of Emma bent over the pool table, taking a shot. He scrubbed both hands over his face and shook himself like a big dog climbing out of a lake.
They’d settled nothing at lunch.
If anything, he’d only walked away more confused than he had been before.
So the only way to get this clear in his mind was to go and see Emma. Talk to her. Figure out what the hell it was that was driving him and then find a way to end it.
And if a small, rational voice in the back of his mind was warning him to steer clear of Emma Jacobsen—he wasn’t listening.
EMMA SAT ON her back porch, staring up at the sky.
Star Jasmine flavored the warm, moist air and stirred in the gentle breeze that swept through the yard, then disappeared again. Sighing, she leaned against a porch post and stretched her legs out, down the steps leading to the grassy yard. She reached for the frosty margarita sitting beside her and lifted it for a sip.
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