Paper Kisses (5 page)

He smirked and lifted one sexy
eyebrow.
 
“Having fun?”

He’d already asked that but since
he was ignoring what just happened between them then she could ignore it
too.
 
Or, act like she could.

“Three of your
fangirls
back there wouldn’t mind you
flexing
your muscles,”
she said as nonchalantly as possible.
 

He glanced back the way they’d come
but the woods had already swallowed them up.
 
Realizing they were alone sent a whole new round of nerves flapping
around in her belly.
 
And then she
watched as Sky puffed out his chest and posed like a body builder.

“Like this?” he asked and moved
into another stance.
 
“Or
this?”

She swallowed to get rid of the
dryness in her mouth.
 
“Yeah, just like
that.
 
They’d throw their phone numbers
at you.”

He relaxed his poses and gave her
another one of those enigmatic stares that she didn’t know how to
interpret.
 

“I already have them,” he said with
a dismissive shrug.

Her eyes went wide.
 
Of course he did.
 
Jerk.
 
She went to spin away from him but he must have anticipated her move
because he grabbed hold of her arm.

“Jealous?”

“Why would I be jealous?”

“Just testing
you.
 
Seeing if
you thought about us.”

She cocked her head.
 
“Thought about us what?”

“Come on, don’t play dumb,
Alannah.
 
Thought about
us together.”

“You mean fucking?”

His eyes narrowed a bit at the
word. “Yes, fucking.
 
We’re not kids
anymore and I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to be inside you.”

A very tiny part of her thrilled at
his words and the vivid picture it painted, but she pulled her arm out of his
grasp.
 
“I’m not one of your girls.”

“I don’t want a girl in my
bed.
 
I want a woman.
 
I want you.”

Alannah was confused, and sure she
must be experiencing vertigo of some sort since he was dive-bombing between hot
and cold.
 
Yesterday he acted all cold
and indifferent.
 
Today he was a Dominant
on steroids.
 
This Skylar was too
different, too direct.
 
What had happened
to the young kid that used to blush at the mention of sex?
 
Or the teenager who was
confused on how to unclasp a bra?

“What happened to you?” she quietly
asked.

He raised an eyebrow.
 
“What do you mean?”

“You’re different.
 
More intense.”

“I call it self-assured.
 
And you’re stalling.”

“Stalling from what?”

“From answering if you’ll have sex
with me.”

“Whoa.
 
Direct much?
 
This is just way too fast, Sky.”

“Alannah, I’ve been in lust with
you since I was fifteen years old and realized a girl would feel a lot better
than jerking off to a magazine.”

Her eyes went wide in wonder.
 
Oh.
 
My.
 
God.

He leaned toward her and she braced
herself.
 
Should she run?
 
She wanted to run but her feet seemed to have
grown roots.
 
Oh, he smelled good.
 
Was that a trickle of sweat running down his
neck and into his shirt?
 
Would it run
over his abs?
 
Into his
navel?
 
Yum.

Stop
it!

“Think about it,” he whispered in
her ear and then abruptly turned and headed back the way they’d come, back to
the party, leaving her to stare after him in amazement.
 

What the hell had just
happened?
 
He came charging after her,
dropped a teenage boy fantasy upon her, and then turned and walked casually away?
 
As if he hadn’t just nuked their safe ground
of friendship?
 
This couldn’t be
happening to her, of all people.
 
Bryce
had called her frigid.
 
Boring.
 
There wasn’t
anything more demoralizing than having someone who’d vowed to love you for all
eternity call you boring.
 
She could’ve
dealt with the frigid part, could’ve forced herself to give him blowjobs or
something, but how does one get past being boring?

Her shoulders slumped.
 
Sky had a lusty crush on the girl she used to
be but if he knew her now, really and truly knew her, he’d realize how lucky he
was that she’d left Dexter without a backward glance.

Chapter Three

As the party continued through the
day, Alannah was tortured at the sight of Sky playing volleyball shirtless. He
was just as he hinted he’d be under the tight t-shirt.
 
Muscles that flexed with every move he made,
a blond happy trail disappearing into his shorts, and a tattoo on his shoulder
that added a layer of
oomph
to the
bad boy appeal.
 
She was now in a
permanent state of arousal and she didn’t like it.
 
Bryce had never made her feel this out of
control.
 
He’d never made her yearn for
sex.
 
And on top of that she was hot and
bothered for her
best friend
.
 
She could barely wrap her brain around that
concept.

As he spiked the ball over the net,
she picked up a clean paper plate and began to fan herself as visions of that
body spread on top of hers made the party in her panties a little more intense.

“Hot?”
CeeCee
asked.

“You have no idea,” Alannah
muttered.

CeeCee
followed her gaze.
 
“I totally
agree.
 
If I didn’t think of him like a
brother I’d be chasing that tail feather.”

“
Cee
!”
Alannah admonished.
 
“I’m…just…feeling kind of faint.
 
I need to cool off.”

“Definitely.
 
You do look a little flushed.
 
Hey, let’s go dip into the lake.”

The thought of what could be living
in the murky water finally pulled her from ogling Sky.
 
She frowned at
CeeCee
.
 
“Aren’t there water moccasins in there?”

“Yes.
 
And leeches.
 
Come on, let’s go!”

Alannah pursed her lips as she
watched her friend pull off her top and shimmy out of her jean shorts.
 
There were reasons why God invented
chlorinated pools and two of those reasons waited in the lake.
 
Ugh.
 
No fucking way.
 

“Come on,”
CeeCee
yelled to her.
 
“Last one in is a rotten
egg.”

“What are we, five?” Alannah yelled
back.
 
With reluctance she took off her
clothes as well, down to the bikini she wore underneath.
 
CeeCee
went racing
into the water but Alannah took her time, easing into the water.
 
Ew
.
 
The ground was slimy.
 
She waded out to her knees before remembering
that fish popped in the water.
 
She
turned to make a hasty retreat back when she ran face-first into the hard
muscled chest she’d been admiring from afar all afternoon.
 
She didn’t even have to look up.
 
Her body throbbed to attention and she knew
she was touching Sky as her nipples popped up to give a big,
ol
’
howdy-do
.
 
She crossed her arms over them, embarrassed
to be showing too much of her attraction for him.

“Leaving already?” he teased.
 
“You just walked in.”

“I…fish…poop.”
 
She shook her head to clear her jumbled
thoughts.
 
What the hell did she just
say?
 
“I meant, I just remembered, fish
poop in the water.
 
I don’t think fish
poop is healthy.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

She shrugged and the next thing she
knew, he swung her up in his arms.
 
She
shrieked and threw her arms around his neck, knowing exactly what it was he
planned to do.

“No,” she said frantically, shaking
her head.
 
“Please, Sky. I don’t want to
go in the water.”

He raised that eyebrow again,
giving her that appraisal look that was fast turning her on.
 
Oh, who was she kidding?
 
Everything about this new and improved Sky
was turning her on.

“What’ll you give me for not
tossing you into the lake?” he asked.

“Anything,” she said, a bit
desperately.

He didn’t answer, just abruptly
turned around and marched back to the beach.
 
He sat her down near her folded pile of clothes.
 
She blinked and looked at him in confusion.

“I noticed you came with Kevin,” he
told her.
 
“I’ll drive you back this
evening.”

“Oh.
 
Um, okay.”

He gave her a crooked little grin
and turned back to the game and that’s when she saw he still wore his jeans and
they were now wet up to the knees.

****

Alannah couldn’t help but sit
stiffly as she watched Sky walk around to the driver’s side.
 
He had helped her into the truck cab like any
gentleman would, but the shit-eating grin on his face belied his good
intentions.
 
She had a feeling he had
something up his sleeve.

When he started the engine, the
radio kicked on and country music blared loudly.
 
Sky immediately hit the off button and shot
her an apologetic look.

“Sorry about that,” he said.
 
“I also sing off-key in the shower.”

Instead of relaxing her with a
joke, the words invoked an image of him naked, which didn’t do much to put her
at ease.
 
Not when her imagination had
been trying to go there already.
 
She was
still wondering how Sky had gone from her childhood friend to a man who made
her think of sex.
 
Sex, sex, and more sex...
 
And now, thanks to his attempt at humor,
shower sex.

Had she always had this simmering
cauldron of desire for him?
 
Had she
always secretly wished he’d ask her out?
 
Of all the times he’d bitched about his girlfriends, had she wished she
could kiss the bad choices away?
 
God,
this was
crazy
.
 
She’d just returned home yesterday and hadn’t
seen him in twelve years, so why now did her libido decide it was time to wake
up?
 

And why hadn’t it woken up with her
husband?

“You know, I don’t really feel like
going home,” he said.
 
“You want to go to
East Park?”

“Don’t parks close at dusk?”

“Hey, it’s good to be sheriff,” he
mused, sending her a quick wink.
 

The rest of the trip had her on
edge and the anticipation kept her in a state of arousal that was
almost…painful.
 
Sky pulled into a
parking space near a picnic table and even before he’d killed the engine
Alannah jumped out of the cab, needing a moment to calm
herself
down.
 
She drew in a lung full of crisp
night air as she walked over to the table and sat on it, leaning back on her
hands to stare up at the star-filled sky.

Sky sat an unopened bottle of beer
beside her, still dripping with cold water from the cooler.
 
Her eyebrows went up as she picked it up and
unscrewed the lid.
 
Sky tapped her bottle
lightly with his own before taking a deep swallow.

“After closing with a beer,” she
said.
 
“Sure hope this section isn’t
patrolled.
 
I’d hate to call your parents
up to bail us out of jail.”

“The luxury of being boss is having
the spare,” he murmured, holding up a set of keys.

“Prepared, I see.”

“You know it.
 
Linda says it’s one of my best traits.”

Hearing his girlfriend’s name
quieted the butterflies in her stomach.
 
She
sat her beer down with a click.
 
“
Cee
told me you had a girlfriend.
 
Serious?”

He shrugged.
 
“Sometimes I think so.
 
Then something will happen and I won’t call
her for a couple of weeks and I start to think, fuck it.”

“Something like an argument?”

“Yeah.
 
She likes to play head games, not realizing
those games push me away.”

“And you do nothing to perpetrate
these games?”

“What do you mean?” he asked sharply.

“I mean, have you been truthful to
her?” she asked bitterly.
 
“Truth works
best, you know, because if not snip, snap,
crack
of
the heart and you’re divorced.”