Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(16)

A flash of those eyes made his gut tighten. “It was kind of unavoidable.”

“How’s that?”

She sipped her beer so long he thought she might finish it. “That pay phone didn’t hide much. They saw you…”

“They saw us.”

“Well. But you—”

“Started it. Is that what you were going to say?” Jasper leaned closer, powerless to keep the grin off his face. “That’s the oldest excuse in the book, but I’m going to let you use it. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to finish it, too.” Just the kiss. You can manage one healthy interaction, man. “And you catch more bees with honey.”

She turned until her legs were pointing at him and a blinking sign that said PROGRESS might as well have lit over his head. “Am I the bee in this scenario?”

“You surely are.” Slowly, he swiped a thumb over her knee. “And I reckon you sting when provoked.”

Rita exhaled in a rush of shaky laughter. “Wow. You are very good at this. Do you practice in the mirror?”

He’d already been halfway to irritated with himself before her question, but that brought it safely home. It had taken him exactly ten seconds to fall back into old patterns and habits. Behavior he thought he’d buried, but apparently his colossal attraction to Rita had dredged them right up. Jasper pitched to the side, supporting himself with an elbow planted on the bar. “Damn, can we start the conversation over? You don’t have to walk back outside or anything. But pretend I just asked you whether or not you’d spoken to Peggy about me.”

When she repeated her earlier response without a single hesitation, his desire to kiss her skyrocketed straight to the moon. “It was kind of unavoidable.”

“I’m sorry I put you in that position, ma’am.”

The edge of her mouth tugged. “No, you’re not.”

“No, I guess I’m not.”

Rita laughed. If life had a rewind button, he would have hit it over and over again, the way he’d done with love scenes as a child watching his grandmother’s taped episodes of General Hospital. Until he’d been caught and sentenced to a week of dish duty, anyway. Rita laughed with her eyes. They went a little glassy as her shoulders shook, but the actual sound was what crept over his skin like skimming fingertips, shooting him full of awareness. It was low and intimate, like a bass string being plucked in a smoky jazz club. He wanted the sound back as soon as it faded. Wanted to hear it vibrate against his belly. Go easy, man.

“So.” He plunked his beer down on the bar. “Where were you four headed in that big, rusty Suburban before Hurley reeled you in?”

She looked pensive as her shit-stomping boots started to sway back and forth, bumping the wooden rungs of the stool. “We need to be in Coney Island by New Year’s Day. So we can jump into the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Why—what?” He dropped onto the stool beside her, his drink forgotten on the bar. “That’s pretty high on the list of things I didn’t expect.”

“Oh, I know the feeling.” A beat passed. “It was our mother’s last wish.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded, brushing her hair back in a jerky motion, as if she were uncomfortable having someone’s undivided attention. He’d never had cause to use the word preposterous before, but that was the only way he could describe her lack of confidence. Despite the inappropriate name, the Liquor Hole was his life’s work, and, at the moment, it was nothing more than an unworthy backdrop for Rita. And, God, he was staring at her hands like an aggressive palm reader. “Most mothers want to avoid having their children turn into floating ice sculptures. What was her reason?”

“Good question.” A hint of sadness winked in her eyes, and Jasper wished he’d let the subject drop. This was what happened when he avoided talking about sex. He stumbled right into deceased parents. And yet he wasn’t sorry. Not even a little bit. He wanted to know everything. “I think…she meant it as some sort of symbolic bonding experiment. But I don’t know. We’re kind of unbondable.”

“Got the feeling I interrupted a near-melee this afternoon.”

“Aaron called my soufflé decent.” A strand of dark hair caught on her lips when she shook her head. It took one hundred percent of his impulse control not to tug it away, but she beat him to it, anyhow. “It sounds silly now.”

“Nah.” Jasper couldn’t help leaning in to get a whiff of cooking spices. “He would have had it coming just for dressing like a preacher on a weekday.”

Another one of those quiet, smoky laughs. “I guess there’s a fine line between politician and preacher.”

“Politician?” Jasper shivered, then recalled the threat Rita’s brother had leveled at his head back on the highway. “Still, I can’t help but like him for wanting you safe from a stranger. He can’t be all that bad if he worries about you.”

“Worried might be an exaggeration,” Rita said.

When her golden-brown gaze lit on his mouth, Jasper realized he’d moved into her personal space without any conscious thought. One of her knees brushed the denim covering his hip and, God help him, if the bar were empty he would’ve been between her split thighs before she could call for Jesus. For someone who hadn’t felt more than a passing appreciation for the opposite sex in years, his libido was sure trying to play catch-up tonight.