by Marie Hall
“I’m trying here, okay?” He glared right back at me.
“Oh, and should I feel special or something? Alex Donovan’s talking to me.” I knew I was being a bitch, but he seemed to bring out the worst in me sometimes.
“Yeah, you should feel special.”
Gah, he had that sexy Matthew McConaughey drawl down and I really wish he’d just stop talking.
“You know what I do with girls? I ignore them. I get what I want and then I ignore them. So why can’t I ignore you?”
“Are you serious? Is that the best you’ve got? So I should feel special because you’re not ignoring me? What about the other day? Huh? You didn’t even apologize. You just got out of the car and said nothing. Don’t you think I at least deserved something? Especially after the way you got all grabby with me.”
“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?”
“Get on my last nerve.” I arched a brow.
But rather than get angry, he laughed. And the sound, yeah, it was nice. Throaty and full of a decadent burr that made me feel like a caged tiger prowling back and forth.
“That’s why I can’t forget you.”
“You’re not making any sense.” I crossed my arms, still trying to maintain my rigid posture, but it was getting harder the longer he refused to rise to the bait. Alex made me crazy—he always had.
“Because you’re not making this easy.”
“Oh jeez, vanilla, just stop right there before you make me puke in my mouth.”
He clamped his lips shut, but his silver eyes danced with laughter.
“Did you set this up with Jamie?”
He tapped his chin with a long finger and I couldn’t help but imagine that finger tracing the curves of my breast, how his palms had burned like coals through my shirt yesterday. I hadn’t wanted to like what he’d done, and even though he’d left me feeling somewhat used, I couldn’t deny it had made my body flare to life in a way it hadn’t in years. I swallowed hard.
“I might have seen her at Chai Time this morning and maybe bribed her to let me take her spot on the ride. Maybe.”
“God.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re killing me, smalls.”
He snickered.
And just like that, it was gone. All the angst and moody crap that’d shrouded me like a freakin’ thundercloud all weekend vanished.
Grabbing my hand, he raised it to his lips. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against my thumb.
I swear it was like electricity when he touched me, I felt the zap shoot through my bloodstream from the point of contact, radiating through my limbs and torso before finally settling in a tingling rush between my thighs.
I think I sighed.
“Jamie said I may have overreacted.”
“Smart friend.”
I blew out a raspberry. “Whatever.”
“Look, can we start over?” His eyes were so large in his face, and I felt my defenses crumbling beneath that lost puppy-dog gaze.
“Friends?” I asked.
His fingers threaded through mine, then he placed my hand on his lap as if he were claiming me.
“Or more.”
I was ready to shake my head, to tell him we shouldn’t, that he shouldn’t. But then he was pressing his face in close to mine and I could smell the woodsy aftershave on his body and words just sort of abandoned me.
“Let’s take the wait-and-see approach.”
The Ferris wheel finally began to slow down, but my heart was pounding harder than ever.
I didn’t say anything, but I think he understood, because when it was our turn to get off, he was still holding my hand.
He looked down my body. “You look nice, by the way.”
Lips twisting tight as I fought a blush, I turned to him. Alex looked exactly as I expected he should. Like a living, breathing, walking Abercrombie & Fitch model who wore black cowboy boots. “You look good too, vanilla.”
We stood in the center of the field, blocking the path between rides, but I was seriously in my own world. I couldn’t think about being rude or being polite, I was sucked into the black hole that was Alex. It was crazy exciting and more than a little scary.
His knuckles grazed my cheek and my lashes fluttered.
“Where to now?”
I looked around for Jamie, but of course she was long gone. The minx had probably ditched me. Digging my phone out of my back pocket, I speed-dialed her.
“Let me call Jamie real quick.”
Alex tucked his hands into his pockets, a very satisfied curl to his lips.
On the third ring she picked up. “Yo?”
“J?” I dragged out her name, turning it into a question.
Shivery laughter spilled through the line. “Did you like my surprise? Huh, didya? Didya?”
“You suck.” I laughed.
“I do sometimes, but not usually.”
With her, that could either be a really naughty comeback or an innocent response. Either way I couldn’t stop the snort-giggle from creeping out.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I bailed, girl. Hot as hell tonight. And I think Alex is good. We talked. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he screwed with your head again I’d sic my big-ass boyfriend on him. I think he got the hint.”
“Jamie, you’re ridiculous.” Angel was at least six inches shorter and probably weighed a good thirty pounds less than Alex. Angel was muscular, but he had nothing on Alex. But I guess to my miniature friend he was huge.
“Anyway, try to have fun, sweetie. And whatever you do, don’t overthink this. ’Kay?”
“Yes, mom.”
“And umm, Z, stay out late tonight. I might have some company.” I could practically hear her lascivious grin.
“You’re disgusting. Wasn’t last night enough? Besides, I thought you were mad at him.”
“No. I’m twenty-one, I’m normal. You’re the weird one, Ice Queen. And we talked, things are good. Now go.”
The line went dead.
“We good?” Alex peered down at me.
Tucking my phone back in my pocket, I shrugged. “She ditched me. Can I catch a ride with you later?”
“I’m with my cousin and his fiancée and their kid, but I don’t think they’d mind. So… what do we do now?”
It didn’t take me but a second to think of it. “The other day you wanted to do something crazy—you still game?”
He cracked his knuckles. “Oh, I’m game.”
Chapter 8
Alex
My body buzzed with the pop and burst static of adrenaline. We were eighty feet up in the air, perched on the edge of a thin metal platform with nothing but a few straps cinched to our bodies to keep us from splatting against the hot asphalt below.
But it was hard to focus on the potential body disfigurement when she was looking into my eyes, smiling her sexy smile, and telling me without words that I was vanilla and she knew I wouldn’t go through with it.
The new Alex, he didn’t agree though. This Alex was going to be opposite, do everything the old Alex would never have done.
“When I count to three, you snap on the cord,” the attendant yelled over the roar of the wind.
“Last chance, cowboy,” she whispered in my ear.
“One…”
“…Two…”
“Three!” I yelled in unison with the man and then ripped on the cord attached to my side. The platform beneath our feet dropped, sending us instantly plunging toward the brightly painted X below.
My insides crowded my mouth. Adrenaline flooded my blood and pounded through my skull, narrowing my field of vision to a mere pinprick of light. And I felt nothing.
Not the bad kind of nothing. The good kind, the kind I only ever got from drinking myself into a drunken stupor, the kind where I didn’t think about John, or what happened, or the fact my life was in stasis.
This was what I’d been craving—excitement, the pull of the unknown, and the absolute quiet and stillness of a single perfect moment.
>
I whooped and hollered, and for the first time in years, I felt free. Then her hand was grabbing mine and suddenly I could hear above the sound of my own noise and she was laughing, staring at me with wonder in her honey-brown eyes. If we weren’t still swaying a good fifty feet off the ground and separated by hooks and straps, I’d have grabbed her.
“That was awesome!” She shoved hair out of her eyes.
The fall had lasted only seconds; now we were just dangling while the winch lowered us slowly and safely to the ground. Two men worked the pulley to bring us down.
“Come home with me tonight.”
Her brows lowered; we were less than a minute away from landing. “Alex, I don’t think—”
“Then stop thinking. Look, Zoe Misaki whatever the hell name you want to hear, I want you. Desperately. You make me crazy and I just want to hang with you. Is that so bad?”
I could read the indecision in her honey gaze, but there was more than that too; there was need.
“You feel this too. I know you do.”
“Alex…”
I knew I was making an ass of myself; I had never worked this hard in my life to get a girl to come home with me. But I was willing to do it for her because when I was around her, I felt again.
Long, black lashes fluttered as she closed her eyes.
Driving the dagger home, I moved my lips like a whisper over the tops of her knuckles. “Please.”
We were finally standing on the ground again; the attendants were tugging and yanking the straps over our heads. Her eyes never swerved from mine. “No sex.”
The man kneeling at her feet snapped his head up, looking on with wide-eyed wonder at our conversation. The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed up and down, and the skin above his collar reddened with an immediate rush of blood.
My lips curved into a hint of a smile. “Third base?”
Yeah, juvenile question, but it accomplished what I’d hoped it would. She laughed, and the sound shivered across my skin like the brush of feathers.
“Don’t think so, frat.”
I grabbed my chest. “Aww, c’mon. Second base.” I cupped my hands in the air, making like I wanted to grab her breasts.
She slapped them away and I licked my lips, my tongue scraping along the ring, and I realized I was kind of liking the damn thing more and more. I wanted to see just what kind of pleasure I could give her with it. “Tongue?”
The carnival worker swallowed hard.
Her eyes twinkled. “Maybe. If you’re a good boy.” Then, turning on her heel, she marched back into the throng. The mini-shorts she wore accentuated the delicious curve of her body and made my mouth water.
“And that,” I said, looking at the man who was still staring at her backside, “is how it’s done, my man.” Clapping his back as hard as I could, enough to make him stumble and realize there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting with my woman, I chuckled and jogged to catch up with her.
She was popping gum in her mouth, then with a raised brow she offered me a piece. I took it, just in case that was a hint, and chewed on the cinnamon stick.
“So.” She dragged the word out after a minute of tense silence.
There was only one way I knew how to make this comfortable for the both of us again and that was to do what we both wanted, only she was too chicken to admit it. My smile was the only warning she got before I was tugging her behind a trailer.
I didn’t give her a chance to rethink her decision, I was done pretending. Spitting out my gum, I kissed her.
She trembled under my touch and a soft mewling sound spilled from her lips. Hungry for more, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and hauled her deeper into me. I wished there was a way to merge with her, sink deep into her body and live in this moment. Zoe tasted like honey and cinnamon; her tongue dueled with mine. And it wasn’t enough.
Leaning against the trailer, I planted my hands into her hips and pulled her up, forcing her to wrap her legs around mine. Her kisses were hot and sensual and there was no Ice Queen in her touch, this was primal need, a hunger so intense that I thought maybe we’d start a fire where we stood.
Her sharp nails dug into my arms, and then they were sliding up my neck. Next thing I knew, she was flipping the ball cap off my head and running her fingers through my hair.
I growled deep in my throat, trying to not only taste her, but inhale her.
“Zoe,” I whispered, and my brain was so hazy, so full of her taste and touch—the way my skin shivered under her fingers, the heady scent of her perfume, spicy and sweet, smells that would always be tied to her.
Flipping positions, I pushed her up against the trailer. I traced her, my hand sliding beneath her shirt. Her skin was like fire, heating my palm, and I’m not sure anything intelligible fell from my mouth. Then she was sucking on my lip ring, pulling it into her mouth and rolling it between her teeth, and it was like a bolt of lightning arcing from the metal to the very center of me.
I was hard in an instant and grinding against her body, trying in vain to ease the ache that was building to an inferno pitch.
She pulled away first and it was with a whimper that I rested my head against hers.
“I don’t think I can call you vanilla anymore.” Her voice was tight with laughter and I snorted.
Gradually I became aware of the audience we’d gathered. Where before there’d been an empty field, there was now a group of five or six people openly gawking and staring at us.
“Five bucks for the show,” I growled.
Rather than blushing, or looking embarrassed, Zoe slipped from my arms and rearranged her shorts. “Best ride in the park, cowboy.” She winked and then, grabbing my hand, pulled me back into the crowd.
“So what are we doing?” She looked at me, and the sex kitten was gone. She was unsure again—I read it all over her face, the way she nibbled on the corner of her lip. “Are we really doing this?”
Stopping, I framed her face and just stared at her for a second. Words crowded my head, so many different thoughts, but like always they got stuck in my throat. I knew what she was asking, knew she wanted reassurance, and I wanted to give it. For the first time, I really did.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “Sometimes in life, all we have is right now. I don’t know anything about anything, Zoe. But I want to be with you, I want to hang out and I want to see where this can go. Do you want that too?”
Her nostrils flared and I worried she might not answer as the seconds ticked by. Licking her front teeth, she nodded. “Yeah, cowboy, I do.” She shrugged. “Game on?”
I grinned. “Game on.” My body was humming, sparking like a live wire. I might have said something else, but then I spotted a familiar face. It was Ryan. He was leaning against the ring-toss booth and rubbing his lower lip between this thumb and forefinger.
His blue eyes glittered with laughter and I knew why—my cuz had caught the heavy-petting session.
“Caught the show, eh?”
Scrubbing his jaw with his fingers, he said, “Caught something, little cousin.”
I wasn’t sorry and didn’t feel the need to apologize for it. I wanted her with a fire that burned, and there was no shame in that. Kissing her palm, I made quick introductions.
“Misaki, that ass wipe is Ryan. Ryan, my Misaki.”
Her lips pressed into a tight curve. When she shook his hand, she nodded. “It’s actually Zoe. For some reason he can’t seem to get that through his fat head.”
Ryan’s brows gathered into a question mark.
Obviously observant, she shook her head. “My parents named me Misaki. I didn’t like it, so I legally had it changed to Zoe three years ago.”
“Ah. Yeah, okay.” He nodded. “Well that makes sense, and did you say he had a fat head?” Ryan jerked his thumb at me. He laughed, then looked me square in the face.
Ryan and I, we’d always communicated on a different wavelength. We didn’t even really need to talk to understand each other. We’d honed our ski
lls after years of living together—there was no one else in the world who understood me the way he did.
Zoe was the first woman I’d ever actually introduced to him. My other dates had always just been tagalongs. Not that I was a jerk, but… So, okay… I sort of was. They’d been fun, and that’d been it. A way to pass a night or two or three, nothing more. Because they never stuck around, I didn’t bother with introductions or bringing them to meet my family, small as my family circle was.
But I had with her and Ryan knew me well enough to understand what that meant.
“So which one should I call you by?”
“Zoe. Z. Either or.” She wiggled her hands. “It doesn’t really matter.”
Ryan’s blue eyes sparked with something. I think he was measuring her, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. “All right. Well, my family is in the food tent. You guys want to come and eat?”
“Sure,” she said sweetly, and my heart did some sort of stupid crazy thing in my chest. My palms were starting to sweat too. What the hell?
Why was the thought of introducing her to my clan making me feel suddenly sick, like I’d swallowed a bucketful of rancid grease? Her hand trailed up my forearm, and oddly, it was calming.
“You live in Austin?” Ryan asked her, making small talk, and it struck me as funny to see my normally buttoned-up cousin trying so hard.
She nodded. “Yep. Work at The Garage down on Sixth. The tattoo parlor.”
“As if he can’t tell—you’re a walking billboard.” I traced the lotus flower drawn into the curve of her elbow.
“I like it.” Ryan winked, then stood to the side as we approached the massive food and beer tent. Pointing to a table on the left, he waved at Lili and Javier.
The tent smelled of roasted meats, spicy pizza sauce, and sautéed onions and peppers, which made my mouth instantly water and my stomach grumble in appreciation.
Javier shot up from the table and walked immediately over to Ryan, hanging on to his hand. He’d grown big in the two years since I’d first met him. The kid came to Ryan’s chest now, and though he still didn’t like making eye contact, he did talk.
