Burn It Up(33)

“So the other night meant something,” Abilene whispered at length. “Was there more to that thought?”

He swallowed, gaze moving to her face.

“It meant something,” she said. “But we can’t ever be serious. So what does that leave?”

“Aside from sexual frustration?” he asked, then smiled, tempering all the seriousness.

“I was never after forever with you,” she said, realizing it was the truth. “I know I come with more baggage than most men are willing to take on.” She’d only wanted a taste of what romance could feel like, with someone who treated her as Casey did. Just a taste. She’d had that now, though her body still wanted more, wanted to take things further, feel it all.

“That’s not—”

She shook her head, in no need of whatever he’d been about to offer—a contradiction, an excuse, an apology. None of them mattered. “I only wanted to know what it would feel like, with you. With somebody who makes me feel what you do. Even for just a little while. A week or a day, or a single night. Just for as long as that kiss lasted.”

Even in the dimness, she could see him blushing. It made her bold. Here was the moment when her selective and self-serving bravery did kick in—when a man tipped his hand, offered a little peek at his cards. When she could sense that a woman’s body just might trump a guy’s best intentions.

And it always does, doesn’t it?

“You can’t make any promises,” she murmured, turning onto her side to face him fully. “And I don’t have any expectations. That makes us sound awful compatible just now—don’t you think?”

He swallowed, gaze seeking her eyes, her mouth, her breasts.

“I liked everything that happened the other night,” she said, meeting his eyes on the final word. “Everything except for when it stopped.”

Again, he swallowed, lips parting and looking fuller. Surely this professional gambler had a poker face to be reckoned with, but just now he was an open book. “Did you?”

She nodded.

“So did I,” he said. “More than I thought I should tell you.”

“I’m not as delicate as you think I am.” She might wind up with a broken heart at the end of this non-courtship, but she’d lived through far worse.

He edged nearer, and she thrilled when his knee nudged hers. She opened her legs, welcoming his warm, heavy thigh. The contact was more sweet than sexy, matching the caution on his handsome face. She scooted close. He cupped her cheek and studied her lips for a long moment before meeting them with his own.

Her eyes shut, and she felt his collar in her grip, the top button of his shirt, a soft tease of chest hair against her knuckles. She wanted his shirt gone, and a chance to touch the unknown planes of his body. Wanted him completely naked, and excited. Wanted him hard and hot and begging for her.

“You just f*cking love to feel wanted, don’t you?”

James had laid that on her, spat those words in the midst of the fight that had her leaving him for good. Nothing stung quite like the truth. Nothing cut with so jagged an edge. She did love to feel wanted. It went beyond vanity, went someplace darker and deeper and uglier, but she hungered for that. Craved that power that no girl with her unassuming smarts or charms or looks would ever be expected to possess.

“Never give a man everything he’s after,” her grandmother had told her. “There’s far worse words for a girl to be called than ‘tease.’ Hold a little something back. Dogs are happiest when they’re hunting, so don’t get caught until it’s on your terms.”

She tried to imagine explaining this philosophy to Raina, on one of those nights back when they’d worked together. While Raina intimidated the crap out of her, she was also a bit in awe of how her old boss managed to go through the world caring so little what others thought. Saying what she liked, needing nobody. What would Raina counter her grandma’s wisdom with?

Hey, if you want to date dogs, by all means, knock yourself out. I’ll just be over here, f*cking a grown-ass man.

Yeah, that sounded about right. And was probably fair. But Raina had more leverage in this world than Abilene did—looks, means, confidence, an established role in the place she called home. Playing games with guys might be deceitful and manipulative, but when it was the only tool you had . . .

Still, Abilene had no desire to play those games with Casey. There was no future for them, nothing at stake. Nothing standing in the way.

She kissed him deeper, welcomed his tongue. Imagined that he was her first boyfriend, that everything was how it should be. A do-over to fix her entire sexual history, make it all right.

She touched his face and hair, fascinated. He was so much more than good-looking to her. This was the first man—the first person—who’d held her daughter, the first face Mercy ever saw, first voice she’d heard. Maybe those things were making her project more onto this attraction than was wise, but it felt so good, she just wanted to stay lost in the rush. Never come up for air.

His hand roamed down her side, then eased up beneath her sweater to rest at the middle of her back. Through her shirt she felt the warmth of his skin—he radiated heat like no one she’d ever met. Like a permanent fever. She touched him in turn, rubbing his chest, tugging at the snaps of his shirt one by one, until she had it spread open and his blazing bare skin was under her palm. His breaths quickened and his kisses grew stilted, distracted.