“I think I have a boyfriend!”
Everyone laughed at that comment. But Lilyanne just twirled around in a circle and dashed to her parents.
Noah scooped her up in his arms. “You’re a little young for a boyfriend, I think. Right?”
“Yep,” Kimber agreed. “Much too young.”
Lilyanne stuck out her bottom lip and hugged her flowers.
“Let’s go with Mom to find something to put them in,” Noah said, carrying her out of the room.
Jensen stood from where he’d been crouching, and his eyes found me across the distance of the living room. His eyes seared into me like a brand. I immediately felt flushed. I watched him peruse my outfit, starting at the tips of my toes and agonizingly dragging his eyes up to my face. My cheeks burned like a torch as a smile bloomed on his face, dimpling his cheeks, and it reminded me that not only was he drop-dead gorgeous, but he was also somehow amazing with kids.
Fuck, what am I getting myself into?
Heidi nudged me forward into the charged space and then disappeared into the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said, feeling the weight of our distance and moving toward him like a magnet. How did he have this kind of effect on me? Did all women feel like their bodies were on fire when Jensen Wright settled his gaze on them?
“Hey, Emery,” he said, taking another step toward me so that we were nearly touching.
He held out his empty hand and brushed my arm. My skin crackled, and I had to control my emotions not to show it.
“I had flowers for you.”
I cleared my throat and smiled up into his deep dark eyes. “That’s okay. You just made Lily’s day. She’s going to be talking about you forever now.”
“Ah, good. She’s adorable. How old is she? Four?”
I nodded and used the opportunity to glance back at Lily, who I could just see in the kitchen. “Yeah.”
“That’s a great age.”
“She’s the best,” I agreed. I swiveled back to face him and was met with a molten gaze that brought back all of the dirty thoughts I’d had in church earlier today. Yeah, there was no way I could end this date tonight. Not with him looking like that.
A heavy black Arc’teryx jacket molded to his body over a T-shirt. Dark jeans ran down his powerful thighs, revealing dark boots that were definitely worn and loved. I was a lost cause.
“I know I’m early,” he said. “I saw that a cold front would be moving through tonight. That was not in the plan, especially with how the wind is now.”
“Only in Texas,” I said with a laugh. “The weather is crazy unpredictable. With my luck, we’ll have a dust storm blow through.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“I’ll get my coat.” I dashed to the closet and grabbed my winter coat, sliding it over my sweater.
Heidi waved at me from the kitchen and mouthed, Have fun. I winked at her and then returned to Jensen.
“Ready.”
Jensen raised his hand at my family, who were staring at the pair of us from the kitchen. I hurried out the door in embarrassment and put getting my own place on the ever-growing list of things that I needed to do. He pulled the door closed behind us and veered me toward a lifted black truck. It was huge and masculine and looked like I was going to need a step up to ride it. Just like Jensen.
I shook my head to get my mind out of the gutter and let Jensen open the door for me. I brushed past him. The contact sent shivers up my arm that I knew I couldn’t blame on the weather. I sank into the passenger side, and then Jensen shut my door and climbed into the driver’s side. I checked out the kick-ass interior and reworked my Jensen framework around this truck. I definitely hadn’t pictured him for a big-truck guy. For some reason, I’d assumed he’d have a shiny little sports car. I really needed to get over my prejudices about this guy.
Jensen backed out of Kimber’s driveway, and then we started heading toward town.
His eyes peeked over at me in interest, like I was a puzzle he wanted to put together. “So, what are you in school for?”
Okay, play it cool. I wasn’t hiding why I was here, but I hadn’t really talked about it with anyone outside of my family and Heidi. And we’d been friends long enough that she knew which questions not to ask.
“Um…PhD in history at UT Austin.”
Both eyebrows rose at that, and I realized that I liked surprising him.
“A PhD? That’s incredible.”
“Thanks,” I said. Even though I knew that I had made the right decision in leaving, I knew earning my PhD had made me stand out and given me focus. Without it, I didn’t really know who I was or what I was doing.
“What kind of history?”
“Oh. European female figures with some interest in European monarchy mistresses. Well, I was writing my dissertation on Madame de Pompadour, who was the renowned mistress of King Louis XV of France.”
“Mistresses,” he said with a shake of his head. “There’s a lot of research on that?”
“A surprising amount honestly,” I told him.
“Interesting. I always wanted to go back and get another degree,” he admitted.
“Pretty hard to do while you’re running your own business, I would guess.”
He nodded, resting his hand on the gearshift between us. I got distracted by his long, masculine fingers and the way they wrapped around the head of the stick. Wow, he had big hands.
My eyes shot back up to his as my thoughts strayed all over again. Damn, it hadn’t been that long since I’d gotten laid. I felt like a dog in heat.
Jensen didn’t say anything about the look on my face, but I could tell in the barely suppressed grin and cocky tilt of his head that he knew I’d been checking him out. “That would be the main reason. Just too busy to go back to school.”
“Aren’t you in charge though? Why would you need another degree?” I asked, keeping to safer territories.
“I wouldn’t.” His face went disturbingly blank for a second. His bright and shining eyes turned flat and empty. His smile disappeared.
It was like all the joy had been sucked out of the air from that one little question. And I didn’t even know why.
I chewed on my lip and faced front again as we pulled off of the main road and into a parking lot. With my mind swirling with possibilities as to why that had upset him, I hadn’t put much thought into where we were going to eat or what we were going to do on this date. I’d been too preoccupied by the warm clothing aspect.
But, now that we were standing outside of Torchy’s Tacos, I burst out laughing. “You’re taking me for tacos?” I asked when I met him by the bed of the truck.
All the seriousness of the last bit of our conversation had disappeared, and no tension remained in his shoulders.
“What? Do you not like tacos?” He apprehensively assessed me. “Tacos are a deal-breaker.”
I gently shoved him as we angled toward the front of the restaurant. “Of course I like tacos. Do people not like tacos?”
He shrugged. “Traitors maybe.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I said with a laugh. “I just didn’t expect…tacos.”
“What were you expecting?”
His body angled toward me, and once again, I felt that crushing inescapable force vibrate between us. There was something that made it so that I couldn’t seem to get my bearings with him.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m just realizing that you’re not what I thought.”
“Good. You aren’t what I was expecting either.”
“Oh, yeah? What were you expecting?”
“After meeting you yesterday? A girlie girl who likes makeup and hair and designer clothes.”
I couldn’t seem to help myself at that image and abruptly laughed out loud.
“Yes, well, I realize that’s not who you are.”
“Not even close.” I straightened but kept my smile firmly in place.
He leaned forward, so our bodies were nearly touching and brushed a lock of hai
r off my face. My head tilted up, and I stared into those deep eyes, hanging on to every word with bated breath.
“Let’s suspend all preconceived notions about each other then. What do you think?”
I nodded. “I’d like that.”
Chapter 11
Jensen
Emery wasn’t what I’d expected.
I knew that I had told her to put preconceived notions behind us, but she was turning me on my head. I had thought she was just a hot piece of ass. Patrick wasn’t lying when he’d said I got a look in my eye when I was chasing women.
But Emery didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who just fucked around. She was smart. Another quality I was not used to in the women I dated. She was clearly driven and seemed to have her shit together. It was actually refreshing.
I hadn’t really known what to expect, walking into this. When I’d seen her at church, I couldn’t help myself. Landon had said she was going to be here for only a few days. What would he care about me going on a date with his ex? It wasn’t like we were going to get married or anything. No, I’d definitely sworn that off after Vanessa.
But, if this was a quick trip for her, then it wouldn’t be any different than hooking up with someone I met when I was away on business. We happened to meet in Lubbock and not when she was in Austin.
Emery’s phone buzzed noisily while we waited in line at Torchy’s. Her laugh was effortless, and I enjoyed the flush that followed. Whoever had just messaged her certainly made my night easier.
I raised my eyebrows as she shoved her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “What was that about?”
“Heidi,” she said, as if that explained it.
Heidi. Right. They had been together at the wedding. I liked Heidi. She was a bossy, hard-working, and energetic woman and an HR nightmare. Not for me, mind you, since I didn’t mix business with pleasure, but half of the men on my staff were head over heels for her.
“Heidi’s great. I don’t know what we would do without her. Though you’d never guess that from talking to her about it. How long have you known each other?”
We scooted forward in line, and she edged closer to me. I was glad that I’d gone for casual. I did enough fancy dinners to know when a girl was into it. As soon as she’d said that she didn’t carry a purse, I knew a fifty-dollar steak wasn’t going to do the trick. Plus, even though this never happened, I really did prefer this. Tacos were my favorite.
“That sounds like Heidi. Always the hard worker who acts as if she couldn’t care less,” she said, flipping her hair off her shoulder. “We’ve been best friends basically forever.”
“Well, she’s lucky then.”
She shook her head and nudged me. “Nah, I’m the lucky one. She keeps me on the straight and narrow.” She mischievously grinned up at me. “Well…mostly.”
I decided right then and there that I liked that look and would do a whole lot to make her keep looking at me like that.
“No one wants to be too straight and narrow.” I leaned down and whispered into her ear, “I color outside of the lines.”
She burst out laughing as we reached the front of the line, and I held out my hand so that she could order first. I left her to fill up her drink and then grinned at the woman behind the counter.
A few minutes later, we had our tacos in a bag, and I hefted them up to eye-level. “Ready?”
She tilted her head in confusion. “Tacos on the go?”
“We have places to be,” I told her.
Her eyes flickered between me and the bag of tacos. I couldn’t read what was going on behind those eyes. Is she enjoying this, or am I going too far? I did have things planned for the night, but they could change if she wasn’t interested. She looked adventurous, and I wanted to see if I was right.
“All right,” she said after a minute, “lead the way.”
We moved back out to my truck, and I passed her the bag of tacos after she hoisted herself up into the passenger seat. I didn’t always drive my truck either, but where we were going, it was always better to have four-wheel drive.
I sped us out of town, and Emery handed me my tacos. She suspiciously eyed me while we ate.
“Where the hell are you taking me?” she asked halfway through her second taco.
“You haven’t guessed?”
She seemed to consider it. “I mean…I know what’s out this way, but I have no idea why you would be taking me into the middle of nowhere on a first date.”
“Lubbock, by definition, is the middle of nowhere.”
“That is a fair point,” she agreed.
Her leg was bouncing in place, and I could see she was curious but trying not to be.
“You don’t like surprises?”
She shrugged and then grimaced. Then, she shook her head. “I mean…sometimes. Like, surprise, my sister is pregnant, that’s awesome. But I’m kind of horrible at this waiting thing. I was that kid who would sneak into my mom’s closet and peek at my Christmas presents. I called Oklahoma before they announced scholarship letters and convinced the person in administration to tell me whether or not I’d made it.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. She sounded just like me. If someone had planned something like this for me, I would be losing my mind, having to know what was going on.
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said, swatting at my sleeve. “I’m impatient.”
“I don’t fault you. I am the same way.”
“So…where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Then, she slumped back down. “Ugh! Okay. I’ll wait.”
Luckily, she didn’t have to wait for long. Before she knew it, we pulled into the small town of Ransom Canyon. It was only about twenty minutes outside of Lubbock and generally considered a sort of suburb of Lubbock. Not that Lubbock actually had suburbs. It was just one of the closest towns.
“Ransom Canyon?” Emery asked, staring at the flat lake that took up the center of the canyon.
Unknown to most people, west Texas had a series of canyons that studded the land, like holes in Swiss cheese. Palo Duro Canyon, an hour and a half north of town and just outside of Amarillo, was the second largest canyon, after the Grand Canyon, in the United States. It was one of the many things that made this side of Texas interesting if you knew where to look.
“Have you seen their Christmas lights before?”
“Nope. I’ve been here a million times before. We used to go to the lake as kids. I’ve spent many a summer weekends on boats here. But I didn’t know about the Christmas lights. When did they start to do that?”
“A couple of years ago. They even have a radio station tuned in so that you can listen to Christmas music as you circle the neighborhood and the lake.”
“Festive.” Her tone instantly changed. She had gone from skeptical to excited. She leaned forward in her seat, wondering where we were going to start first. “Are we going to see them all?”
“Of course,” I told her. Even though I’d had something else in mind, I was not going to miss a minute of that smile.
I switched the station over to AM radio and drove around town. It was a small area of only about a thousand people, but the people who had chosen to move out on the lake rather than live in town generally had considerable wealth. The mansions were decked out in Christmas lights, which had all likely been done by the same company. It was like the modern version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas when the two Whos were fighting over who had the best lights. That was the entire town.
Our drive was punctuated by Emery’s oohs and aahs and the occasional, “Slow down; you’re going too fast.”
I had to say, that was something I’d never heard before.
Emery lit up brighter than any of the houses that we’d passed. Halfway through, she must have begun to relax around me because she started singing along with the Christmas music. She was a little off-key, but I found that it didn’t even matter. And, eventually, we were both belting out the chorus to Mariah Care
y’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Emery was laughing so hard that a few tears rolled down her face. “Oh my God, if I had thought for one second in high school that I would be singing Mariah Carey with Jensen Wright on a real date, I think I would have dropped dead.”
“Hey, don’t dis Mariah,” I said. “She’s an icon.”
“She can’t even sing anymore!”
“I’m going to pretend like you didn’t say that.”
She snorted and then covered her face. “Oh my God, what is my life?”
“Seems pretty awesome,” I said with a grin. “Even if you don’t like Mariah.”
“I do like Mariah!” she cried. “Stop twisting my words, you!”
“I’m not twisting anything.”
Her smile was magnetic, and I just wanted to kiss her. I mean…I’d wanted to kiss her all night. But sitting there, in front of the last lit house, with Christmas music playing in the background and her smile radiating joy, there was nowhere else I’d rather be. That thought hit me so suddenly and I didn’t even know why.
I put my truck into park, leaned over to her side of the car, and pushed my hand up into her dark hair. She froze, silhouetted by the light display behind her. Her eyes locked with mine, green meeting brown, and her eyes widened with surprise. She breathed out softly, and I could feel her pulse ratchet up at my touch.
This was the girl who had pulled me across the room at Sutton’s wedding, like a magnet finding its pair. This was the tension that I’d felt when we first spoke. Here was the world of desire and lust that had clouded both of our minds ever since our first kiss.
My face was only inches from hers. I wanted to take what was mine. I wanted to claim her mouth and then her body right here in the cab of my truck, like we were young, wild, and carefree.
But, instead, I couldn’t seem to stop staring at her.
She laughed lightly to try to defuse the tension. But it wasn’t possible, and it was a feeble effort.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she whispered boldly.
I didn’t need any further prodding. I crushed my lips against hers. It was like striking a match. Our lips moved against each other, desperate with the need to get closer, to have more. She opened her mouth for me, and I brushed my tongue against hers. The groan that emanated from deep in the back of her throat made my dick twitch. Our tongues volleyed for position. She was just as aching for attention as I was.
A Kiss For You Page 98
