BBS aluminum wheels. The golf ball gear lever-”
Daisy cut to the chase, her tone sympathetic. “You just can’t let anyone drive her but you.”
He didn’t immediately respond, probably because both of them were distracted. When Teague put down his wineglass, he’d seemed to forget their pacing pattern and reversed his direction. As a result, they found themselves facing each other in front of the couch-with no passing lane for either of them to get by.
She could have backed up. So could he. But suddenly they were barely inches apart. Close. As physically close as they’d been that wild night of the blizzard. Maybe they were both fully dressed this time, but for her, the same sensations welled up. She felt alone in the universe with just him. No one else in sight or sound.
No one else who mattered.
She saw his hand rise. Saw the fire in his eyes kindle-and then smoke. She knew, inside, that he was going to reach for her even before he did it, and she had ample time to pull away.
Instead her arms swooped around his neck at the same time his wrapped around her waist. His lips met hers halfway.
Ignition was faster than nitro exposed to a match.
She knew he was wrong for her. She just forgot why. In fact, why she was afraid of being with him disappeared faster than a sixteen-year-old with the car keys. Wicked heat seeped from his kiss to hers. Sinful hopes communicated from her tongue to his. Her pelvis so naturally ground provocatively against his groin. He shot up, hard, in the nestling privacy between her hips.
That single kiss darkened, richened. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think. No matter what he thought, she’d never taken up with a stranger, not like she had that night in the blizzard. No matter what anyone thought, she’d never been the wild girl everyone thought her to be, growing up in White Hills. She’d never even been the wild girl she wanted to be.
Except with him.
Something about Teague-the taste of his kisses, the sneaky stroke of his tongue, the scent of him-set off explosions of bad, bad ideas in her mind. And between her legs.
His mouth lifted…probably because both of them were gasping for breath. His eyes found hers, loved hers, expressed hunger and a fury of frustration…yet his voice was as lazy as a summer morning.
“Okay, okay. You can drive my Golf GTi. But it’s a hell of a concession. And don’t think I’ll just give in every time just because I’m dying from wanting you.”
She tried to recoup as fast as he did, tried to laugh, but her legs were shaky and her heart even more so. “Are you trying to suggest that kisses are part of this work deal?”
“Hell, no. I don’t make deals about sex. If there’s a ‘deal’ about working together-all I’d say is let’s be careful to put all our cards on the table. If an arrangement works for you and me, let’s do it. Sex is nothing like that.”
“You don’t put your cards on the table about sex?”
He raised an eyebrow, managing to look as if he were almost breathing regularly again…even if his pelvis was still rocking against her pelvis. “You know anyone who’s completely honest about sex?”
“Yeah. Me,” she said.
He chuckled. “Me, too. But the fact is-I don’t know how to promise guarantees on something as intricate as two people. From where I stand-I want to sleep with you. In fact, I’d like to have another two-week blizzard where no one could reach you in the entire universe but me. In fact, I’d like to spend the next five years in your bed nonstop. But who knows if that would be a good idea for you.”
“Quit making me nervous, Teague.”
He stopped smiling. Gently touched the side of her jaw with his thumb. “Somehow I don’t think many men have made you nervous. Maybe it’s good for you to be nervous. Maybe being thrown off base might be terrific for you.”
He wanted her to tease back, Daisy sensed. And she wanted to flirt. Wanted to play the way they’d been playing, wanted to
But Teague had no way to understand. Being nervous wasn’t a joke for her. She simply couldn’t let a man throw her off base. Ever again.
Seven
Three days later, Teague hiked toward the cafe, feeling edgier than a porcupine with an itch.
He’d finished up the Cochran job, had two more projects he was putting in motion this week. Daisy was going with him to see both sites. First, though, they had to settle the wheels thing.
Teague jingled the change in his pocket, thinking that a guy had to draw a line somewhere. Maybe he was crazy to fall in love with her. She was so determined to leave White Hills. So used to the excitement of a more exotic life. So not like him.
Still, he could accept a certain level of lunacy in himself. She was so damned special that he could work with the love problem-maybe-at least a little longer. But letting Daisy drive his car-in snow-was a different problem entirely.
A guy’s car could be like letting someone else use your toothbrush. It was hard. Really, really hard, to let someone else do it.
He pushed open the door to the cafe, the knot of dread in his throat feeling glummer by the second. She needed wheels. He had the spare vehicle. It’s just…this was not good. To have to test a relationship as fragile as theirs this soon, with something as hairy-for him-as this.
She was free as of one o’clock, she’d told him. It was ten minutes after one right now, yet when he hiked inside, he could see right off that the cafe was blasting busy…when no place was blasting busy in White Hills in the middle of a snow-crusty winter. Over heads and sounds and smells, he spotted her instantly…talking to some regulars at the bar stools up front, right at the bakery counter. Three guys had her attention corralled.
Her hair was wooshed up today. Clipped somehow. Strands had escaped their prison and were cavorting in wild wisps around her neck. Her cheeks were flushed, as if she’d just pulled dishes from the oven. She didn’t look to have an ounce of makeup on, yet her ears were showing off a jewel that matched the same blue-hued stone around her neck. She had some kind of blouse that wrapped around her instead of buttoned, leaving a deep vee for the stone to lie, almost to her cleavage, almost showing her cleavage-only not quite. Even when she was leaning over and the guys were trying their damnedest to get a peek.
“Yeah, you’ve got that right,” she was saying to her trio of drooling fans. “Jean-Luc made it big. He should. He’s a really special, talented artist.”
“I thought you had to die to make money if you was an artist,” one of the guys said.
“Well, he was hauling it in for the last few years. And I can swear on a Bible, he was definitely alive.”
The three men laughed. “So why’d you get divorced, then, Daisy? We all thought you had the perfect life. Traveling around the world. Living high and nice and all. Your guy making lots of money. Able to do all the things you dreamed of.”
Good question, Teague thought, as he shifted out of his jacket and sidled forward-slowly-because she hadn’t spotted him yet. He wanted to hear the answer to that question in the worst way.
It just didn’t make sense. If her Jean-Luc was so wealthy, how come Daisy couldn’t afford even a used set of wheels? She’d told him a lot the other night…but not a clue what her divorce had been about. He needed to understand how she could have all this expensive stuff, and yet still be the worst kind of broke. Bad broke. No health-insurance broke. Seriously broke.
Smells wafted toward him. The bakery counter had little formal signs now. Lavender Cookies. Brownies with Lavender Whipped Cream. Lemon Loaf Lavandula.
Roast pork with rosemary and lavender had been added to the chalkboard up front-where Harry’s lunch specials were usually limited to brats and hot dogs.
And the cafe had started to look completely different. The grease smell seemed to have disappeared. The cash register shone so hard it looked new. The old red-and-white-checked curtains had been pulled back with ties and the windows washed.
