Authors: Cherrie Lynn
Ross 02 Rock Me (16 page)
He was probably catastrophizing. She had been more than willing last night. It had probably taken so much courage for her to allow it to happen, in opposition of everything she knew…and he’d shot her down. Images of her in her baseball caps and T-shirts, looking like anybody’s sweet kid sister, swam through his thoughts. She’d never had a man to tell her how beautiful and sexy and desirable she was, and when she’d finally found one, he’d said all the words but hadn’t followed through. Not only that, but he deserved the Asshole of the Year award for the way he’d treated her when he left. He hadn’t known how dire the situation was.
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That melting sensation was back in his chest. Either it was worse or the alcohol exacerbated it, because he felt as if his whole damn heart was about to spill out on the floor. He had to get out of here.
“Starla, I need to jet,” he said, fishing his wallet out of his back pocket. He threw down enough cash to cover their drinks and a hefty tip.
“Going to see her?”
“Thinking about it.”
She gave him a sly wink. “Well, I hope you two have a
wonderful
evening.”
He returned her grin and stood from the barstool, only to sit his ass right back down when he saw who was in the booth nearest the door. “Holy shit. She’s here.”
Starla gasped, sitting straight up. At least she didn’t whirl around to look. “Oh, no, I hope she doesn’t get the wrong idea. Did she see you?”
“She wasn’t looking at me. Looks like she’s with someone.”
“Well, go invite her over or something! So she knows this isn’t anything shady.”
“Nah, it’s cool.” He really wasn’t worried about her getting the wrong idea about
him
. Who in the fuck was that guy sitting next to
her
?
“This isn’t funny at all,” Michael fretted at Candace’s side. “You’re going to get my ass kicked, Candace.”
“Oh, please. It won’t come to that, I promise.”
Sam giggled from her seat across from them. “Hey, we’re three buddies out for a drink. Besides, he can’t say anything since he’s here with some other chick.” She threw a surreptitious glance over her shoulder. “Although I have to say that looks pretty platonic from where I’m sitting. You could fit a bulldozer between them. Still, it won’t hurt for him to get a teensy bit rattled.”
“If he’ll bother,” Candace murmured.
Michael shook his head. “It might hurt if he rattles
me
. Oh, shit, here he comes.”
Candace fought down the desperate urge to look up. To gauge Brian’s expression. To see if she really needed to keep her body between him and Michael in the name of her good friend’s safety.
“Michael,” Sam whispered. Although a whisper in here was practically a shout. “You should put your arm around her or something.”
“So he can break it off?”
“Man up, dammit,” Sam snapped, her eyes twinkling with amusement. She leaned across the table toward Candace. “No matter what happens here tonight, don’t you dare leave with him. You gave him a taste last night, now you want to make him sweat. The man hasn’t even taken you on a proper date yet.”
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She could excuse that. Brian just didn’t seem the dating sort. “I’m not into the whole hard-to-get thing,” she fretted.
“Honey, that’s so freakin’ obvious, but this isn’t a game. Wanting what you can’t have is a fundamental of human nature.”
Was that all her feelings for Brian were? Nothing more than a base reaction to the untouchable, the unattainable?
Michael was still hung up on Sam’s previous comment. “Hey, I am a man. But getting the shit beat out of me so
she
can make some dude jealous does not a man make.”
“Okay, shhh,” Candace hissed. She allowed herself to glance up then. Her gaze tangled with Brian’s as he approached, and she forced herself to school her facial expression to show only genuine surprise to be bumping into him. An oh-what-a-wonderful-coincidence look. Not an oops-I’m-caught-spying look. He didn’t seem to be trying to conceal any feelings at all. There wasn’t joy to see her. There wasn’t anger, either. Did he feel
anything
? He was so frustrating.
“Hi,” she greeted as he reached them. He gave them a smile, but it was scarier than it was friendly.
“Do you know my friends, Michael and Samantha? Guys, this is Brian.”
The three of them exchanged greetings, and she thought Brian’s appraisal lingered on Michael longer than on Sam. Sizing him up. Michael seemed to notice it too, because his foot prodded hers hard under the table. She kicked him back.
“It’s great to meet you,” Sam piped up, scooting over to make room for him in her booth. “Candace has told us a lot about”—Candace shot her a withering look—“about getting her tattoo. She said you did a great job. I’ve been thinking of getting something myself.”
Brian’s gaze lingered on Candace even as he and Sam struck up a conversation. She felt it like a physical caress, though she didn’t dare to meet it directly. Anger still simmered in her blood. His blond companion had found her way over to the pool tables, chatting up a few of the guys shooting a game and occasionally swigging her beer. Candace could see her only from the back, except for when she turned to glance in the direction of the door and flashed a pretty, delicate profile. Lips to die for. She had different colors threaded through her hair. Her denim skirt was slung low enough on her hips to reveal what Macy would call a tramp stamp…and a peek of a thong of some indiscernible color. One of her legs had what looked like a gorgeous sunburst on the calf, but half of it was obscured by her black cowboy boot. Maybe he’d given her the tattoos. Maybe that’s the kind of girl he really wanted. They would make a beautiful couple, she thought miserably. She was something Candace could never be.
“Here with your girlfriend?” she asked innocently, when the simmer threatened to turn into an outright boil.
Sam’s eyes grew to the size of quarters. Brian had been saying something to Michael—who had relaxed considerably—but he calmly turned his attention back to her. She smoldered under the scrutiny of
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those blue eyes, and felt stirrings beneath her own micro mini-skirt that did not bode well for Sam’s directive not to leave with him. His hair looked so sinfully silky her fingers could still feel it sliding between them. Her lips could still feel the tickle of his goatee.
Damn you, why do I have to want you so bad?
He grinned as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “That’s Starla, one of my artists. She’s here to confront her on-and-off boyfriend about something, who the hell knows what.”
“She can’t call him? Go to his house?”
“Not when he won’t answer the phone or the door.”
“Sounds like she’s stalking him, then.”
“Hmm, doesn’t it? Stalking is such a deplorable thing.” His gaze leveled her, vaguely mocking, infinitely infuriating.
Oh, the nerve! Was he actually insinuating…accusing her of…?
Well, he was right, after all. She hadn’t called him. Hadn’t gone to his apartment. She’d followed him here. But to call her out on it! How dare he!
It was official. She hated him.
Brian nodded in the direction of the door. “Let’s go out and talk for a minute.”
She hated him so much, her heart kicked into triple time after his suggestion. She shot Samantha a glance and read in the other girl’s face everything she wanted to say.
Don’t leave with him. Do. Not. Leave.
With. Him.
“Fine.” She stood, resisting the urge to wipe damp palms on her skirt. Brian followed, leaving Sam and Michael staring up at them with knowing little smirks. Candace had one moment of satisfaction when Brian looked as if his eyes might roll out of his head at the sight of her outfit. It didn’t involve much more fabric than Starla’s. Stupidly, she’d worn it to entice him when they talked, hoping they’d end up back at her place again. Or his.
“Have fun,” Michael said. The three of them exchanged nice-to-have-met-yous as Candace roamed toward the door, arms wrapped around herself, trying to get a grip. She was shaking, and she had no idea why…whether it was from anger or arousal or the memory of what had happened between them only last night. The desire for it to happen again, knowing that it couldn’t. She did know it, didn’t she? Deep down, didn’t she realize that Macy was right? That her parents would make her life a living hell from now till eternity if she ended up with someone like him? She didn’t want to end up disowned. She didn’t want to end up used and discarded by him. It seemed there was no happy medium: sleep with him even though there was no future, or sleep with him knowing there was a future and it alarmingly resembled the seventh level of hell. In that case, was she willing to run away from everything she’d ever known to be with him? It scared the bejesus out of her to consider it. 92
Rock Me
Of course, either option assumed that he
wanted
her. She should say her goodbyes to him now, go home, let the tears out and soothe herself with a tub of Häagen-Dazs and half a pound of Godiva. Then fill the lingering emptiness not assuaged by comfort food and
Desperate Housewives
reruns with a shoe-andhandbag shopping spree tomorrow with her best friends. Retail therapy. It had always helped. Brian caught up and pulled open the door for her, waving goodbye to his female friend. Candace had nearly forgotten all about her. She supposed that meant she believed his story, foolish as it might make her. They strolled out into the cool spring night, leaving the chaos of the sports bar behind. Candace breathed deep as they walked, trying to clear the muddled confusion of her thoughts. At least, that’s what she told herself. She was really trying to calm the jitters that raced along her nerves. Being with him made her feel as if mad little beasts were trying to eat her alive from the inside.
“Where are we going?” she asked softly.
“I’m parked in the back.”
She stopped walking. “I’m not leaving with you.”
“That’s fine. I just want to talk.” His gaze raked down the length of her body, taking in her short skirt and tight baby tee. “Is this my influence, honey? Because I think I like it.”
He might as well have touched her. Her nipples hardened and pushed against the silk of her bra. She fidgeted and tugged the hem of her shirt outward, hoping he couldn’t see the peaks through her clothes, fighting the urge to cross her arms over herself.
When he saw she wasn’t going to reply, he reached for her hand and pulled her into motion again. Maybe he had his own version of “goodbye” well rehearsed and ready to deliver, rendering all her agonized indecision moot.
The inside of his truck still had that new-vehicle smell. He’d bought it after he and Michelle broke up, so she’d never been in it before. It was nice and roomy, a quad-cab. She made sure to stay scooted as close to the passenger door as she could even when he raised the console and left the bench seat open. A snicker sounded in the darkness when she made no move to get closer to him. “Afraid I’ll bite?”
She stared straight ahead. “Something like that.”
“You’re a riddle to me, sunshine.”
“Why do you even call me that?” she blurted.
His surprise was almost palpable in the air between them. He cleared his throat. “It’s stupid. Don’t worry about it.”
“Tell me. Please?”
“On one condition.”
“What?” she asked warily.
“That you scoot over here next to me.”
Her fingers were twisting into knots with one another. “After you tell me.”
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He sighed as if dealing with an insistent child, and began toying with the steering wheel. “One day when I was at Michelle’s apartment, the weather was crappy and cold and she seemed to have a galloping case of PMS or something. I was ready to take off, but then you came over. You walked in the front door, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and a pink cap with your hair pulled through in a ponytail, and you gave me the biggest smile. It was…almost blinding. You lit up when you saw me. And I thought you were like a ray of sunshine that had wandered in from the rain.” He scoffed. “Told you it was fucking stupid.”
She picked at her nails, feeling her bottom lip quiver and hoping it didn’t portend a torrent of tears.
“It’s not stupid. I remember that day. You stayed around and we ended up all going out for a movie and pizza. But why do you say I’m a riddle?”
“Damn, what’s with the questions?” He sounded far more amused than annoyed.
“You can’t just throw that out there and not expect me to wonder why.”
“I see.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the side of his leg and his hand resting on his thigh. How she wanted him to touch her. But if he did, she was lost. “If you don’t come over here, I’m coming over there.”
“Brian—”
“Hey, that was our agreement. It’s okay.” He patted the seat next to him. “Promise.”
Sighing so that he was well aware of how unhappy it made her, she slid across the seat until they were scant inches away from touching sides. Now his nearness washed over her, his heat battering her entire left side, and any trembling she’d recently wrestled back control of promptly returned. And then some.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” he said.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why am I a riddle?”
“Because last night, you didn’t seem to be able to get enough, and now you’re looking at me like I’m a leper. And you’re running games on me.”
“Running games?” she asked, looking at him directly for the first time since they’d left the bar. There was only one overhead lamp in this parking lot and it gave scant illumination, casting his face in shadows.
“What am I doing?”
Brian gestured toward the establishment. “That guy in there. You had to make damn sure he was sitting next to you, huh?”
“I have no idea what you’re—”
He laughed. “You can give it up, sweetie. I knew from the second the dude laid eyes on me that he knew exactly who I was to you. Obviously the whole thing was a set up. Did you follow me here?”