Driving Her Crazy (4 page)

She just blinked at him like he was speaking a foreign language.

“Never mind. You’ve probably never seen it.”

“I’ve seen it,” she said, finally speaking.

She just didn’t think
he
had. Got it. Oz gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and tried to let it go. “What’s with the attitude about your family?”

Her jaw dropped and the spark was back in her eyes. “I don’t have an attitude about them.”

“Yes, you do. Your whole body goes rigid every time I mention them.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does,” he said, running a finger down Cher’s arm. The warm flesh beneath his finger trembled until she jerked away. “See. Every muscle in your body is clenched.”

“They are not. And stop looking at my body.” Her voice was annoyed, but a blush crept up her cheeks and she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

He let a slow, seductive smile spread across his lips, before turning his attention back to the road. “I’m not looking. I was just using an example.”

“Whatever.”

The small caveman part of him pounded his chest that he could affect her even though she seemed to be trying so hard to keep her distance. Then again, it didn’t really matter if she liked him or not. A girl like her would never stoop low enough to be interested in a guy like him.

Which left egging her on the only option.

“So…” he said.

“So, what?”

“Come on, spill the beans.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Seriously, you have no filter, do you?”

He just grinned at her. She stared at him, her eyes narrowed, mouth slightly open…sort of like a monkey doing a math problem. Then she leaned over and turned the volume up on the stereo. Lynyrd Skynyrd blared from the speakers.

“You like this song?” he asked.

“Yep.” She turned her gaze out her window, shutting him out as effectively as she could without actually jumping from the moving vehicle.

Oz snorted and leaned back, getting comfortable while he rocked out.

“Oh! We need to stop,” he said, checking traffic behind him so he could pull the car over to the side of the road.

“What? Why? We’ve only been on the road for like…” She checked her watch. “Thirty minutes. Barely. Is something wrong with the car?”

Oz pointed out the window at the Welcome to Tennessee sign. “No. But I wanna take pictures at all the state-line signs so I can send them to Tyler.”

The annoyance faded from her face, replaced by that soft
aw how cute
look women often got when men did something child related. That look usually made him nervous—the last thing he wanted was a baby-hungry woman throwing goo-goo eyes at him. At least at that exact moment in his life. But if it would get Cher to take his picture, he was happy to exploit it.

“How about I just hang out the window and take it so only one of us is getting wet,” she said, grimacing through the windows at the rain splattering down.

“Deal.” He handed her his phone and grabbed the door handle. “Ready?”

She rolled down her window enough to get an unobstructed shot of the sign and nodded. “Go for it.”

Oz jumped out of the car, ran to the sign and struck a goofy pose.

The flash went off but before he could run back to the car she called out. “Hang on! It’s all blurry. Do it again.”

He sighed and shoved his now sopping hair out of his face and posed again. She held the phone up but no flash went off.

“Did you take it?” he called.

“You keep moving, hold still.”

He frowned. “I’m not moving. Just take it!”

“Well now you’re frowning. Smile.”

He grinned, though it was more like gritting his teeth. She turned the phone horizontally like she was going for a better angle. Then turned it back vertical.

“Take the picture!” he said.

The flash finally went off.

“Did you get it that time?” he asked.

“Yeah, I got it.” She lowered the phone and he caught sight of the little smile she failed to wipe from her face.

Oh. So she wanted to play games? Keep him standing in the pouring rain so he got totally soaked? Well then, it would be only fair to give her something to look at for all her troubles.

Oz got to the driver’s side but didn’t get in the car right away. Instead, he whipped off his shirt, letting the rain run in rivulets down the muscles of his chest while he made a big show of wringing it out. He leaned in to chuck the shirt into the backseat and then straightened up, arching his back a little while he ran both hands through his hair, getting all the wet strands from his face.

He finally slid back into the car. Cher stared at him, her face flushed and her mouth hanging open. He leaned across her, his own grin on his face while he opened the glove box and dug around.

She made a little “eep!” sound and pressed herself back against her seat.

“You’re getting me all wet!” she said.

Oz closed his eyes briefly, an altogether different context for that phrase invading his mind. She had no idea how wet he could get her if he really tried. God, it really
had
been too long since he’d had a date. He’d have to remedy that when he got back from this little road trip from hell.

“Just looking for some napkins or something to dry off,” he explained.

“Well, if you’ll move, I have some tissues in my purse…”

He grinned at her and sat back, taking his time to retreat back to his side of the car. She glared at him but reached down and snagged her purse from the floorboard, retrieving a small packet of travel tissues from its depths. She tossed them at him.

He extracted a few and made another show of wiping the water from his skin. She watched for a second, a sigh escaping that full mouth of hers. His smile widened and she blinked, apparently figuring out that she’d been ogling him. She glared at him again and moved back as far as she could against her door, her arms crossed over her chest while she kept her gaze firmly glued to the view outside her window.

Oz chuckled and finished drying himself off. He leaned over into the backseat and rummaged in his bag for a spare T-shirt. Cher visibly relaxed once he’d pulled it over his head.

“Here,” she said, handing him back his phone. He checked out the picture.

“A little blurry but it’ll work. One down, six more to go.”

“Six?” she asked, shocked.

“Yup. We just got Tennessee. Virginia is about forty more minutes up the road. Then West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.”

Cher leaned back against her headrest and closed her eyes. “Fantastic.”

Oz snorted. Oh yeah. This trip was going to be a riot.

Chapter Five

Cherice woke when the car pulled to a stop. She blinked and peeled her face away from the window, looking in horror at the streak of what had to be drool that had crusted to the glass. She wiped her mouth, hoping Nathaniel hadn’t noticed. Not that she cared what he thought of her or anything. But still. Gross.

“I need a pit stop,” he said, opening his door.

“A what?”

“Bathroom break. If you want any snacks or need a bathroom run, you might want to do it now. Unless you want to go somewhere and grab some lunch?”

She stepped out of the car and looked around the tiny town. At least she assumed it was a town. It was green and beautiful like everything else they’d passed, but aside from the ramshackle gas station they’d pulled into, there was nothing else in sight except for an old farmhouse in the distance and a few rundown shops across the street. And damn, it was
hot
. She pulled off the thin sweater that covered her shoulders, leaving on just the silk shell and she fanned herself with her hand. But that did nothing at all to cool her off.

“
Is
there anywhere around here to get anything to eat? Where are we?”

Nathaniel glanced around. “Somewhere in the middle of Virginia. There was a diner not too far back. And I’m sure we can find a McDonald’s or something up the road somewhere.”

Cherice repressed a shudder. “I think I’ll just see what I can find in there.”

Nathaniel shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He leaned back, bending far enough to pop his back, exposing a nicely muscled strip of toned belly at the same time. Her eyes zeroed in on that deliciously taut skin, her mind happily fixating on the memory of what other bits of goodness were hiding under his shirt, before she made herself look away. She had no business drooling on him. Over him! She meant
over
him. An uncomfortably warm breeze whipped through the station and ruffled Nathaniel’s light brown hair. Cherice had the sudden urge to run her fingers through it, find out if it was as soft as it looked. The thought was immediately followed by a rush of shame so strong her cheeks burned with it. The man was
married
. Her neglected libido really needed to get that important fact wrapped around its head.

He looked over his shoulder and caught her staring at him. Those eyes of his…Cherice couldn’t help but fall into them. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact color. Blue, yes. But darker than cornflower blue. Not quite sapphire. Almost a blue-gray. She wondered if his eyes changed colors depending on what he wore.

His forehead creased a little in confusion, but when she didn’t drop her gaze right away he gave her a small smile. Cherice blinked, the smile shaking her out of whatever mind haze she was in. They’d been on the road just a few hours and he was already an almost constant thought running through her head. In her defense, concentrating on the lovely male specimen before her was a lot better than dwelling on the miserable weekend ahead of her. But seeing as how the object of her obsession was married, she really needed to rein in it. She tore her gaze from his and ran her hand over her hair, making sure it was still firmly captured in the ponytail.

“I’m going to run inside. Are you coming?”

Cherice shook her head and pulled out her phone. “I need to check some emails real quick.”

“All right. I’ll be back in a few.”

She nodded, not really paying attention as she scrolled through a few emails from work, one or two from friends, and a cat video or two. She responded to the ones that needed responding to and then put her phone away, reaching into the backseat to grab her suitcase so she could put her sweater away. Despite the rain, the air hung hot and heavy. The sweater wouldn’t be needed any time soon. The zipper jammed when she tried to open it and she had to get out of the car to drag it out and prop it up on the trunk instead.

Cherice tugged on the zipper but it didn’t budge. It had jammed enough that she couldn’t zip the thing back up or unzip it fully. And it was enough of a pain, she was about ready to give it up. One more try. Maybe if she propped it on its side so she could tug downward, it would give her a little better leverage.

She tilted the case on the end of the trunk so she could yank without slamming her hand into the car. She got a good grip on the zipper and tugged with all her strength. It finally gave. But she tugged too hard and the momentum followed through, jerking the suitcase right off the car.

“Cher, be care—”

The lid swung wide, spilling the contents out onto the wet asphalt. Nathaniel hurried over, his hands full of hot dogs and bags of junk food.

Cherice ignored him and dove for her clothes. Half of them had landed in a puddle, the other half on the wet and filthy ground.

Nathaniel left his stuff on the trunk and helped her gather everything up. She scrambled around, trying to scoop everything up before it was completely ruined. What was wrong with her? Why did everything she touch have to turn into such an unmitigated disaster? A pair of panties had fluttered beneath the car and she gingerly reached for them.

If she looked up and Nathaniel was laughing she’d hitchhike the rest of the way to New York. But he wasn’t laughing. In fact, when she finally pulled away from the car, her undies wadded in her hand, it was to find that he’d repacked her suitcase as best he could. He’d even emptied one of his bags from the mini-mart to keep the clothes that were totally soaking wet from dripping all over everything else.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting his help to stand up.

His large hand wrapped around hers and he pulled her to her feet. If it had been appropriate, she might have cuddled into his well-muscled chest and let him hold her. She could use a hug. And from the electric heat spreading through her at the mild contact of his hand on hers, she was willing to bet a hug would feel a million times better.

But it
wasn’t
appropriate. So she pulled her hand from his grasp and stepped back. Right into the puddle.

The murky water splashed half way up her calf. Some greasy substance oozed around her ankle and leaked into her shoe and she swallowed her revulsion. The skin on her foot crawled like it was trying to get away from the nastiness coating it.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

A choked-off laugh sent a hot streak of anger burning through her chest. The inappropriate thoughts of cuddling were crowded out by even more inappropriate thoughts of a more violent nature. She lifted her foot out of the puddle, shaking it off as she turned to look at Nathaniel. He covered his mouth, trying to change his laugh into a cough.

Her eyes narrowed and she clenched her fists against the sudden urge to lob the nearest chunk of garbage at him.

“Watch out for that puddle,” he said.

“You couldn’t have said something a minute earlier?”

“Sorry. But since we just dug your clothes out of it, I figured you knew it was there,” he said, his voice cracking on another laugh.

She couldn’t tell him she hadn’t been paying attention because she’d been too distracted by the warm tingles running up her arm from where he’d touched her. So she blurted the first thing that came to mind. “These are $500 shoes! My mother gave them to me for my birthday; they’re almost brand new.”

His eyes widened. “Well for that much money, you’d think they’d be waterproof.”

Even though that was funny, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a laugh. Besides, if she opened her mouth to respond she’d let loose a string of curses that would make a sailor proud. Her anger was a great shield against the attraction she couldn’t help feeling for him. Maybe if she could stay pissed at him the entire journey she could keep her impure thoughts at bay.

She shook her foot again and stomped off toward the station. She could feel his eyes on her as she picked her way across the asphalt. Once inside she found the ladies room, only to discover the door was locked. Cherice marched over to the counter. The man on duty barely glanced up from his paper.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying very hard to hold onto her temper.

“Yeah?”

“I’d like to use the restroom, but it is locked.”

The cashier handed her a key attached to a hubcap without looking up again. “Make sure you return that.”

The thing weighed ten pounds at least. She wasn’t likely to run off with it, though, that was probably the idea. She’d definitely never imagined when she woke up this morning that she’d be begging a gas station attendant for permission to use a bathroom that required a key with a chain bobble larger than her head. She forced a polite smile.

This day was just one clusterfuck of a disaster after another. She didn’t see how it could get any worse.

Until she walked into what passed for a bathroom in whatever godforsaken town she was in. To be fair, she’d never been in a gas-station bathroom before, so she really had no comparison for it. Growing up, they’d always flown on their family vacations and she tended to stay pretty close to home since she was on her own. A gas-station pit stop had just never come up before. But she thought it might be better to pee in the woods than it would be to attempt to use facilities that looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since Reagan was in the White House.

There were paper towels and running water, at least. She dropped the key with its makeshift keychain on the floor, grabbed some paper towels, and turned on the faucet. The water turned on with such force it ricocheted out of the basin and all over the whole front of her white silk tank.

Cherice swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. If there was a God, she must have seriously pissed Him off.

She tried the water again, this time just barely turning the knob. The water trickled out in a steady stream and she wet her paper towels, then set to attacking the muddy stain on her pant leg. After five minutes of careful dabbing and downright scrubbing with soap and water, she had to concede defeat. The stain wasn’t coming off.

Her foot was dry, at least. Except now her right high heel was three shades darker than the left. Since the rest of the clothes she’d packed were now filthy, wet, or both, she’d have to find some place along the road to replace them. Right now, she’d be a shoe-in for any wet T-shirt contest this side of the Mississippi. If she walked into her parents’ house looking the way she did now they probably wouldn’t even let her in the front door.

Now. For the other pressing matter. She took another look at the toilet and decided she could hold it a while longer.

Her bladder, however, disagreed.

She sighed. “Damn it.”

There was no getting out of there until she’d taken care of business, but she wasn’t sitting on
that
either. Two minutes of generously layering toilet paper over every inch of exposed porcelain, employing the tried-and-true
squat and hover
technique, nearly crying with relief when she remembered the tissue in her pocket (because of course, she’d used all the
tp
in the bathroom to create her commode barrier), and she was out of there. Foot reinserted into her squishy, wet heel, bladder relieved, she was in firm resolve from that point on to hold it until she reached New York.

She left the bathroom, dropped the hub-cap key back on the counter, and headed outside. The hot air hitting her wet shirt created an instant sauna effect that had perspiration rolling down her back within seconds. Cherice took great care to walk around the sinkhole of death on her way to the car. Nathaniel waited inside, stuffing his face with some disgusting-looking hot dog smothered in ketchup.

She climbed in and aimed the air vents in her direction. The blast of icy air made her nipples pucker against the wet material of her shirt, something she didn’t realize was noticeable until Nathaniel stopped in mid bite and stared like…well, like he’d just noticed a pair of nipples pressing against a wet, white shirt.

“Problems?” he asked.

“If you must know, I had a little mishap with the water faucet.”

Nathaniel’s lips twitched but he wisely didn’t laugh again. He put his hot dog on the dashboard and reached into the backseat. He unzipped his suitcase and rummaged through what little was in there. From what she could tell, there was only a pair of slacks and a white polo shirt, a black T-shirt, and…heat rushed to her cheeks and she turned back around. Apparently, Mr. Oserkowski was a boxer-briefs man. She started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to keep the image of him wearing nothing but his underwear out of her head. He pulled out the black shirt.

“Here. You can wear this.”

“Thank yo—oh you have got to be kidding me,” she said, catching sight of what was on the shirt.

“Sorry,” Nathaniel said with a huge grin, not looking the least bit sorry. “A buddy of mine got it for me as a gag gift but it’s really comfortable. I was going to wear it on the way home.”

The black shirt had a picture of a man in a chef’s hat, holding tongs and standing next to a grill with the words “Once you put your meat in my mouth you’re going to want to swallow.”

“I can’t wear
this
in public!”

“Why not?”

She just stared at him, mouth hanging open.

He released a long suffering breath. “Fine. Give it here.”

He grabbed the neck of his T-shirt and before Cherice could say another word, yanked it off, treating her to an eyeful of visual yumminess. His broad shoulders sloped into a chest that was lightly dusted with hair and solid enough to prove he either worked out or worked hard on a regular basis. His pale nipples were rock hard in the breeze of the air conditioner, and Cherice had to bite her lip against the urge to lean forward and warm one with her tongue.

Married, married, married
, she chanted over and over in her head. She frowned. “What is with you? Are you physically incapable of keeping your clothes on?”

His eyebrows raised, his lips pulling into a half smile. “Only around some people.” He held out his blue T-shirt, but she was too stunned by the sudden peep-show to take it. “You can’t sit there all day in wet clothes. You can wear my shirt for now.”