Crazy Girl(26)

I stared blankly at her. Her statement had thrown me. I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. Was she going to ream me again? I wanted to believe she was attempting to be humorous, but the subject had been a sensitive one the last time it came up. “Oh yeah?”

“So you weren’t lying. About the dolphins, anyway.” She smirked. It’s not well known, but what I’d told her about the U.S. and Russia using dolphins during war was true. The part about me training them might have been a bit of a lie. Well, not a bit. It was an actual lie. But I thought it was funny. “Why’d you do that?”

I tilted my head. “Do what?”

“Lie about that being your job. Why didn’t you just tell me what you did?”

Busted. Taking my glass, I took a gulp then answered her. “Sounds a lot cooler than the truth, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t say cooler.” She shook her head. “I’d say more unique.”

Then, before I could respond, she changed the subject yet again. “What kind of music do you like?”

We sat for hours, drinking, talking, and laughing, shockingly discovering we had quite a bit in common. Whatever hostility we’d experienced on our first date wasn’t present tonight. It was everything our first date should have been. As we walked out to our cars at the end of the evening, we stood at the tailgate of my truck, neither of us knowing what to say—that awkward and drawn-out moment most people experience just before sharing a first kiss. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans that hung low on her hips, revealing the slightest peek of tan flesh.

A typical man would have said something sweet; romantic, like: You’re pretty or What an amazing evening it’s been. But I wasn’t the typical man.

“I feel like this evening wasn’t as eventful as our last date,” I teased. “You wanna mace me and shake things up a bit?”

She pressed her lips together, stopping herself from smiling as she covered her face with her hands. “Ugh,” she let out a muffled groan. “Erase that from your memory. That was so humiliating.”

I nodded a little too enthusiastically. “I can see how you’d feel that way.”

Like a whip, she lashed out a hand and slapped my arm. It didn’t hurt, but I winced and grabbed my bicep, feigning pain. “Ouch. Crazy and abusive.”

She chuckled softly. “Stop teasing me, Wren.”

I didn’t stop, but I did soften up a bit. “Okay, you weren’t completely insane tonight.” Sarcasm was my native language; a second skin of sorts—one I could never shed. If we were going to hang again, she was going to have to start getting used to it, maybe even grow a second skin herself.

She snorted, a grin breaking out across her face as she shook her head at me like I was ridiculous. “And you weren’t a total asshole.”

Taking a chance, I stepped toward her. She didn’t back away. That was a good sign that a first kiss was in the making. Looking down at her, I couldn’t help but chuckle. She was a little woman—I was probably over a foot taller than her.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one noticing the height difference because she said, “Maybe we should be sitting down for this. I have to bend my head all the way back just to look up at you.”

“I know,” I agreed. “You’re practically hobbit-sized. But I’m a ‘the glass is half full’ kind of guy. There is a positive to you being so short.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I have a pretty wicked view of your cleavage from up here.”

She laughed, smacking my arm again. Damn. I really liked her laugh.

“You’re a real charmer, Wren.”

I shrugged. “What can I say? It just comes naturally.”

We both chuckled, and as the humor faded, her features softened as she stared up at me, her dark eyes scanning my face. As I gazed down at her, I fought the urge to brush my fingertips across the light speckling of freckles that lined her cheekbones. She was a combination of woman and girl, cute and sexy, classic yet simple. Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips and I nearly lost it. But I really wanted her to lean in; I wanted to know she wanted to kiss me as badly as I wanted to kiss her. I knew traditionally guys usually made the first move, but with Hannah and the craziness of our interactions thus far, I felt like she should be the one to make the first move.

But I discovered quickly I had called it wrong. When I didn’t move for her, the nervous-but-wanting gaze I had seen pooled in her eyes only moments before pulled away from mine and she moved to step back. Her mouth tightened. She thought she’d read this wrong; she thought I didn’t want to kiss her. She’d wanted me to make the first move and when I didn’t, she’d felt rejected. Taking her by the hips, I pulled her to me and bent, my lips finding hers with the perfect contact—not too soft, not too hard. There was an awkward moment of adjustment, but once it passed, our kiss deepened. Her body relaxed in my arms and as our mouths moved against each other’s, she whimpered softly. She tasted like whiskey and something sweet, probably her lip gloss. She was so tiny, I felt like I could wrap my arms around her twice. Putting her hands on my shoulders, she raised up on her tiptoes, but it didn’t help our height difference much. I still appreciated the gesture though. When the kiss started to become fevered, she fisted my shirt, and I threaded my fingers in her hair. I felt that kiss everywhere, a slow burn filling me. Suddenly, she pulled back, placing a firm hand on my chest to create some distance between us as we both caught our breath. She hadn’t expected it to be that good. Neither had I. I realized this woman was so much more than met the eye. There were several things that made me nervous about Hannah—things that screamed at me to flee. But her ability to surprise me…I liked that.