The Final Victim(36)

"Why?"

"Because!" Lianna slaps his hand away before it can creep beneath her T-shirt again. The glider they're sitting on groans beneath her shifting weight as she moves away from him.

He moves closer. "It was okay five minutes ago."

"So? It's not okay now."

"Why not?"

"Because…" She juts her Up to blow her own hot breath on her face in a futile effort to cool off. "I'm all sweaty."

"Who cares? So am I."

Yeah, no kidding. The faint, pungent, unfamiliar odor of masculine perspiration mingles with the heady scent of Casey's mother's climbing roses that cover a nearby arbor.

Kevin reaches for her again.

"Come on, stop it! I mean it! My mother's coming."

His head jerks around to examine the garden path beyond the glider's canvas awning.

"She isn't here now, you idiot," Lianna says with a laugh, tucking her shirt back into the waistband of her shorts. "Do you think I'd just be sitting here with you if she was?"

"Nope." Undaunted at being called an idiot, he smirks. "You'd be running away to hide."

"So would you."

"You know it." He glances at his Timex. "Anyhow, I thought you said she wasn't coming for at least another hour."

He's right. She did say that.

But that was before he tried to go further than she expected. Again. It's getting to be a pattern with them over these past few weeks-yet, one she doesn't necessarily want to avoid.

After all, Kevin's cute, and a good kisser, and he really likes her.

She just isn't comfortable making out with him outside in broad daylight, that's all.

Things might be different if they could really be alone together, in private. Sometimes, she thinks she's ready for that. Other times, she knows she's not.

Being Kevin's girlfriend is confusing.

"Listen, I have no idea when my mother's going to show up, actually. You need to go, so I can get out front and wait for her on the steps." Lianna inches away from him on the green and white vinyl cushion, feeling around with her feet in the grass for the rubber flip-flops she kicked off earlier.

"Won't she think something's up when you're outside and your friend's not around?"

Maybe she will, come to think of it. But the plan to use Casey's house while her friend's family is away on vacation seemed like a good one when Lianna came up with it last night.

"I'll make up something," she tells Kevin.

"Like what?"

"Like Casey was eating this cinnamon taffy and she broke a bracket and had to go to an emergency orthodontist appointment."

"That's pretty good," Kevin says admiringly. "Cinnamon. How'd you think of that? Telling the flavor, I mean."

She shrugs. "You've got to use details. That makes it real."

"Wow. You're a great liar."

"Thanks."

"You're so beautiful, too."

She so isn't. She has buck teeth and knobby knees and it's taking forever for her to grow out her hair from that layered cut she got last spring that her mother thought would look good on her.

But Kevin really must think she's irresistible, because he slides close to her and the next thing she knows, he's pulling her into his strong arms again, pressing a hot, wet kiss on the damp skin of her neck, beneath her hair.

Lianna finds herself stirring with an unfamiliar longing despite her resolve to get the heck out of here. She manages to squirm out of Kevin's grasp, only to have him grab her and kiss her again, this time on the mouth. She immediately kisses him back.

Later, she'll go over and over the moment, analyzing everything about it.

How his hand was slipping under her shirt again, and this time, she didn't bother to stop it…

How her own arms circled up around his neck almost against her will, like they belonged to somebody else…

How her heart must have been pounding too loudly for her to hear footsteps approaching on the gravel path…

How it must have looked to her mother when she came around the corner of the house and saw them.

Lianna will analyze the moment because she'll have little else to do, having been grounded-without her cell phone-for the rest of the summer.

"Mr. Remington?"

Gib stops short, halfway down the second-floor hall to his bedroom. He looks over his shoulder to see Great-Aunt Jeanne's nurse, Melanie.

"Yeah?" he asks, his gaze flicking with interest from her blond hair pulled back into a becoming ponytail to her ample breasts straining the floral fabric of her nurse's smock. Even in the frumpy uniform, she's hotter than the blazing Georgia sun.

"Your aunt asked me to come down and find one of you."

"One of me?" he asks, fixing her with a lazy grin, his troubles momentarily forgotten. "You can have all of me."

She smiles at the flirtatious comment "I mean, she asked me to find you, or your sister, or your cousin Charlotte."

"I'm the most interesting of the bunch… I promise you that."

He sees the pink flush coloring her cheeks before she ducks her head, charmingly flustered.

"All right, so let's go on up and I'll talk to the old gal. What's it about? Does she need me to move a piece of furniture? Or stop all those annoying devil voices in her head?"