Never Stopped Loving You (14 page)

“Enough of this.” Whitney hopped up. “None of that has anything to do with you and it’s time for cards!”

“Cards?”

“Poker. Tasha and I play once every two weeks or so.”

Tasha grinned. “Patrick gets bowling night because he plays on Tate’s team for the tournament. I play cards with Whitney and you’re joining us this week.”

Chapter Sixteen

Kara slapped down the crappy hand she’d bluffed on and woot’d with a swing of her hips. “Mine! All mine!”

She reached for the candy pot in the center and tugged it to her side.

Tasha tossed down her cards. “If I had trusted my pair of sixes, those damn Butterfingers would be mine.”

Kara grabbed one of her Butterfingers and tore it open. “Ooh, but you didn’t!”

Whitney laughed and slapped the table. The edge of her hand clipped the side of her cake plate and flipped it off the side.

Tasha screamed and jumped from her seat. “Shit that’s slimy!” She lifted her foot up and strawberry jam streaked down the side of her leg. Using a napkin she swiped it up. “Feels like a damn slug or snail or something mucusy like that.”

Kara chuckled but Whitney’s eyes were big and focused on Kara. “This is what you’re going to do to Wade.”

Kara shook her head. “Throw jelly at his legs?”

“Yes. By surprise. Did you see how high she jumped?”

Tasha’s brows lifted and she sat back in her chair. “This is true.”

Kara continued with shaking her head and sorted out the candy she’d won. “But she was surprised.”

Whitney hmm’d. “We have to find a way to surprise him.”

“Stick it in his pant legs. Won’t know until he puts them on.”

Whitney laughed. “Yes! That’s perfect.”

Tasha laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s going to be a nasty mess with his man-hairy legs.”

Kara shook her head again, not wanting to be drawn in by this idea, but she couldn’t help it. “Too risky. You have to get it in the right pair of jeans or else it would just get hard and gross in there. And what if he doesn’t come in and put pants on? He could put shorts on or something.”
Or nothing at all.
Tingles crawled over her. His whole body. Stark naked.

“Damn.” Tasha clicked her tongue, unaware to Kara’s thoughts. “Underwear wouldn’t work. He’d see that too easily.”

And maybe he won’t put those on either.
He could just crawl in bed with his naked body.
A grin took her face. She glanced over her shoulder to the window to see dark was minutes away. Blame it on the naked thoughts or payback or maybe just the chance to see Wade in all his glory, but she jumped from her chair. “I have an idea, somebody stand watch!”

Kara ran to the kitchen, grabbed another jar of jam, a spoon and headed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. She started to flick on his bedroom lights, but stopped. The lights would be bright and he’d want to know why they’d been in his bedroom. No. Too risky. She was going to have to wing this in the dim light coming through the window and the hallway.

She pulled his blankets and sheets back, opened the jar and splattered the jelly out across his sheets, about where his knees would lay.

Whitney stuck her face in the room. “Hurry! Tasha said the tractor turned off.”

“Almost done. Tell Tasha to stall!”

Using the spoon, she smothered the jam across the sheet, doing her best to get it all the way across the width of the full-size bed he’d slept on since he was a teenager. She grabbed the sheet, tugged it back up, pulled the blankets up and replaced the pillows back where they were. Or thereabouts.

A door opened and closed, Tasha’s and Whitney’s voices echoed up the stairs and Kara backed from the bedroom, taking one last second glance at the room. It all looked the same. She thought. Lord, she hoped. She stepped in Whitney’s room, dropped the jelly jar and spoon there and headed down the stairs as Wade was doing his best to escape the women holding him up at the doorway.

“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t want any cake. Just a shower.”

Kara stopped behind him. “You’re not going to eat any of my cake? And I saved you some jelly to go with it.”

He turned. His lips curled up in a smile.

“After I slaved over the oven?”

He reached out and she held her breath, anxious, waiting for his touch. The hairs along her body rose in anticipation.

He gently tugged on her ponytail instead. “After I take a shower, shortcake.” He looked behind him at the other two girls. “Figured it was poker night with Tasha here this time of night.”

“It is,” Whitney said.

He looked at them. “Why aren’t you playing?”

“Cake break,” Kara threw in before the other girls started mumbling different opinions. “And restrooms. Tasha’s a handful at the table and I needed reinforcements.”

“In cake?”

Kara kept her smile going, but she leaned in to whisper the plan she was making up on the spot. “Sugar spikes and then crashes out. She’ll be looking for sleep in twenty minutes.”

“Gotcha. Good luck.”

“Cake’s on the counter if you’re interested.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“
Ahem.
” Whitney walked past. “If you two are done, we have a game to get back to.”

Wade shook his head and headed upstairs.

Kara started to the kitchen and turned around as Whitney and Tasha entered on her heels. She lifted the knife and cut off three slender pieces to keep the act up. “That was close.”

Whitney kept her voice down with her. “I don’t think he suspects anything.”

“Me neither. I stashed the empty jar and spoon in your room.”

Tasha grabbed plates. “Let’s get back at the table and be well into a game before he comes through. I cannot wait for this.”

Chapter Seventeen

Wade stared at the plain cake in the middle of the counter, then at the opened jar of jelly next to it and shrugged. He could do without the cake after the heat today while he’d sprayed for bugs in the direct sun. It was the jam he was after. After watching Kara a few hours earlier, he’d been waiting to finish up so he could be back and have some.

The whole house had been scented of sweetened berries when he’d come through. Then he walked in the kitchen and all but swallowed his tongue. She’d worn loose-fitting cutoff shorts. Hips had been swaying and circling as she’d washed dishes and then stirred the pot on the stove. The apron strings had hung and danced around her thighs as she moved.

He had been seconds from screwing his patience, crossing the room and talking her into moving a little faster in their friendship-relationship thing. It had only been the phone ringing in the house that had saved him, had him backing out to write her a note instead. And that note had been hell to write. What he’d wanted to write about was how her ass looked in those shorts and how much he wanted to see if his hands would fit under the leg of them like that other pair she’d worn in the orchard. That would probably cross the very big line she’d drawn in the sand, so he held back.

With his cock already hardening over simply remembering her, he sliced off a sliver of cake, dropped a heaping spoon of jelly on it and followed the sound of laughter toward the front of the house in the den. It was going to be murder to be close and keep his hands off, but worth it at the same time. Maintaining that friendship thing. They were officially playing poker. And before, card games were something he’d done with Kara.

He never went in there when Whitney and Tasha played their poker game before. Then, Kara had never been in there playing either. Besides doing the whole friend thing, he had to prove he did take some cake after all. He stepped in the room and found three sets of eyes on him and one thing was perfectly clear: his testosterone wasn’t welcome in their estrogen party. Like hell was that going to stop him. This was a matter of life or death here. He couldn’t move any slower with Kara so he was taking every last chance he could.

Whitney just stared at him. “What are you doing?”

He dropped in a chair at the table, putting himself between Kara and Tasha. “Eating cake. What does it look like?”

“We’re playing.”

“So I see.” He smiled at his sister then put a bite of cake in his mouth. The moist sweetness was better than the heavy sugar he’d been expecting. Add it with the sweet jam and, oh boy, if Kara kept this kind of baking up, he would cuff her to his wrist to keep her around. He just thought the nutty rum cake he’d found the other morning was good. “Damn, this is great.”

Color filled Kara’s cheeks, but she said not a word, kept her cards tucked to her chest and tossed a Hershey’s Kiss in the center with the other piles of candy. “I call.”

Whitney shook her head. “I fold.”

“Full house, ladies!” Tasha laid her cards down with a shout.

His sister and Kara folded their hands and stacked them in a pile with mutters under their breaths while Tasha all but danced as she raked the pile of chocolates from the center of the table.

He glanced at the piles of candy across the table and couldn’t figure shit out from it. “Who’s winning?”

“Tasha is now.” Kara picked up the cards and started shuffling. “She got four Butterfingers out of that hand.”

“Butterfingers.” He looked at the candy again. Kisses, mints and Butterfingers. Geesh. “What are they each worth?”

Whitney finished off her water. “Butterfingers are three, mints two and the Kisses one each.”

He scraped the last bite off his plate. “You could play with cash.”

“But we want candy.” Kara dealt out another round. “Besides, it’s only a friendly game.”

They each picked up their cards and placed an ante of two Kisses in the center of the pile. Each turn they went around picking up cards, raising the bets, checking or folding, until it was time to show their hands and Kara picked up the pile with a two of a kind.

“Eat that, suckers!” She jumped up and he couldn’t help but notice the way her ass danced side to side right next to him as she collected the prize. Like earlier in the kitchen. Only not, because earlier he’d been across the room. Right now he could lean over and lick her stomach.

Whitney picked up the cards and shuffled. “Beginner’s luck. It’ll wear off!”

Kara wiggled in her chair. “Until it does, I’m going to enjoy my winnings.”

Wade scooted up to the table. “Deal me in.”

Whitney blinked at him. “Do you have any candy to play with?”

“Loan me some.”

She slid her stack away from him, Tasha leaned over her pile a little and even Kara, the little tease, eased hers to the opposite side of her and behind her arm.

He shook his head. “There’s probably some in the pantry.”

Whitney blinked and her mouth opened for a bit. Nothing ever came out and Tasha cleared her throat. “Do you have a vagina in your pantry to use too?”

Heat warmed through his face. “Pretty sure we’re all out of those.”

She grinned. “Penises go bowling. Vaginas play poker.”

He looked to Kara, started to argue the point, but decided against it with the other two girls looking on. Maybe he could convince Kara to play some sort of game tomorrow. Until then, he knew his place this time and stood. “All right, I get it. I’m gone.”

Tasha’s eyes fell back on him as he pushed his chair in. “Don’t forget about helping with the swing set tomorrow.”

“Can’t wait.” He lied off his ass, but she knew it anyway.

“Swing set?” Kara glanced up.

Whitney opened a mint. “You were working earlier and I meant to tell you. The guys are putting together one of those big swing sets for Tasha’s boys tomorrow. We’re going to cook lunch while they do it.”

“Sounds cool.”

He walked behind Kara and let his fingers skate over that delicate skin of the back of her neck, just under her hairline. He shouldn’t have. He couldn’t help it. “Good luck.”

He left the room and jogged upstairs. For the best. What was the point sitting down there anyway? Stare at her all night? Wonder about what was under that tight green shirt she wore? Think about how her thighs would feel hugging his hips?

Already he was hard as a spike and like hell he needed that problem while sitting next to his sister. Not when he had the privacy of his bedroom where he’d been taking care of business.

They were going to have to discuss this again. The way he had it figured, kisses shouldn’t be off-limits. He kissed his sister all the time. Not on the lips like he kissed Kara, but still. Quick pecks to the forehead or the back of the head when she needed the pick-me-up. Therefore kisses—of any kind—with Kara should be on the table.

He closed his bedroom door behind him, stripped off his T-shirt and dropped his cotton shorts. The night was warm, humid and, honestly, the day of working in the sun, trying not to think about how Kara’s breath caught and the way her skin flushed with her orgasm, had worn him completely down.

Kara.

He groaned, hit his teeth with his toothbrush real fast and headed for bed where he hoped he wouldn’t think of Kara, but already knew better. He couldn’t get the woman off his mind. All he needed was two minutes alone with her and she would be his. That’s it. Two minutes. So far he hadn’t managed two seconds.

Whitney was always there. Or they were outside and he swore he wasn’t going there again. Once he had her, just one time, that would be it. He’d be able to keep her closer, persuade her back to his bed time and again. Once he talked himself into being an ass and seducing her into changing her mind about what she wanted. He was getting desperate, though.

He turned his sheets back and slid in bed. Something wet and slimly streaked from heel to calf.

He jumped from his bed, landing smack on his ass in the middle of the floor while scrambling for light.

Red, like blood, streaked up both his legs. He touched the wetness and rolled the sticky goop in his fingers. Not blood. He brought the tiny bit on his fingers to his nose and there was no mistaking that scent.

Oh, she was in so much trouble. He chuckled before standing and flicking his covers back. Piles of jelly were soaked in his sheets. “
Kara!
”