“No more secrets. He’s not Brad.” She slides into her seat as I drive away, holding up her arms and yelling, “And I’m going to fuck him tonight!”
Through the rearview I see Wyatt laugh, cupping his hands to shout, “You’re a Cocker alright, but you should’ve been born a boy!”
Lexi wiggles in her seat and smiles, “As if there was ever any doubt.”
Chapter Five
LEXI
I love driving with wind in my hair on a warm southern night like this one, every now and then receiving the gift of night-blooming jasmine filling my lungs with fresh sweetness.
But jasmine is elusive. That’s one of its charms. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve always turned my body to capture it for as long as I can, happy it wasn’t possible, the chase making it special.
Speaking of special - that kiss was incredible.
I was enjoying the flirtation, too. How confident he was just leaning on that door, watching me with this sexy look in his eyes.
Also loved that Gage was down for escaping Wyatt before even knowing who my cousin was! My kind of crazy.
He’s hot.
Ridiculously sexy.
Mmmhmm.
Dark and stormy Gage with shiny raven-black hair, super smooth skin, high cheekbones, and a sharp masculine brow over crocodile-green eyes.
I’m a big fan of his black fitted t-shirt combo of black slacks and shiny boots, one silver bracelet and a slender black-leather rope necklace that’s gotta have a pendant I can’t wait to fondle.
Rockstar meets CEO.
What little hesitation I’d had in moving forward with this rebound plan vanished as he held me with zero insecurity.
What I absolutely adored — and it took me off guard, I have to admit — is that he just went for it with that kiss, yet also worked off of me. It was the sexy conversation it's meant to be.
After the first two or three seconds neither of us were in our heads. At least, I wasn’t and it sure felt like he…
Hmm…
Maybe he was never in his head.
Now that I’m thinking about it, since I’ve got time as we drive through the sleepy roads of Virginia Highlands neighborhood, it was probably just me in my head for the obvious reasons: I don’t know him, was still furious, and my pride was a bit stung.
A bit?!!
Bastard.
What a complete fucking sonofabitch, lying, no good, hateful piece of shit, full of himself, no good (I said no good, didn’t I? Well, he is no good!), cowardly, sneaky, conniving, dastardly (dastardly? Have I ever even used that word?) Lexi cut it out!
But fuck him.
Fuck him!!!
Texting that to me while he was with her! Did he type in the bathroom where she couldn’t see him tapping away with fingers that'd touched us both with neither of us knowing?
Gross.
And there’s me faking myself into feeling all lovey-dovey-happy that he’d thought about me even though he wasn’t with me — by his choice! — when what I really, really wanted was for him to be playing darts by my side.
Who doesn’t want her man playing darts with her on a Saturday night?
Just the girls is fun, sure, but a crowd of seven, nine, twelve — including the girls and your boyfriend — is a blast!
I don’t go to places like that, Lexi, he’d said with his perfect nose in the air. Can you really see me at The Local?
I just did see you, you lying sack.
Why'd he even go when he knew I was going to be there?!
Oh, wait.
I’d told him we'd been invited to a house party in Sandy Springs. And we did, but promptly left after finding a quiet cocktail party too docile for our desires.
Or mine, at least.
The girls always follow.
I’d wanted to get rowdy.
Glancing to Gage, I tilt my head and watch him silently driving, right hand on the wheel, left on his thigh, thumb absently tapping to a beat in his head.
He meets my eyes long enough to send tingles of expectation behind my jeans zipper, then returns to the road.
Hmmm…
This is going to be fun.
We don’t just want to be kissed hard, we want a dance of tongues, a blending of skin, a sensual conversation.
A great kiss is like listening and talking at the same time.
Gage did that.
He was holding me with this perfect, warm pressure, arms making me feel…
Safe?
No.
That’s not it.
Wanted?
No. I knew I was wanted.
Present!
That’s it.
We were present.
Really there with each other.
I even forgot about Brad.
Holy shit! I can’t wait to tell Paige. She’s always laughing at how I can’t wrap my moving-too-fast brain around the whole ‘Zen’ thingy she teaches at her yoga studios. Even though I run the books for Om This LLC, I’ve never quite gotten down with her jam.
But I got it tonight!
We were in The Now!
Speaking of where we are…
“Why're we still in The Highlands?”
“I live in this neighborhood.”
Twisting in my seat, I ask, “Really? Since when? My parents live on this street. It’s where I grew up.”
“Just moved here a year ago.”
“From?”
“Brookhaven.”
“Oh, so not far.”
“Nope.”
I wait for him to say more, watching his handsome profile, and notice a bump on the slope of his nose. “Get that broken in a fight?”
“This?” he points to it.
“Mmhmm.”
“Born with it.”
“Born looking like a badass?”
A smile flickers. “Somethin’ like that.”
“That’s their house!”
Gage twists his broad torso to see it. “That one?”
I turn in my seat, too, as we pass, “Mmhmm,” and scan the oh-so-familiar windows for a light. “They’re probably at Dad’s studio.”
“Studio?”
“He’s a music producer.”
“A music producer?”
“You know, the people who puts songs together?” Gage stares ahead without a sign he understood or even heard me, his relaxed face momentarily lit by one of the antique street-lamps I love so much. “He arranges the vocal and instrumental tracks, has a vision for where the song should go and creates that for the vocal and musical artists.”
“Don’t know much about music, Cherry.”
“Huh.”
We pass a man climbing out of his Lexus who straightens to admire the Bronco lazily drifting by him at a respectable pace for sleeping residents. I watch the guy drinking in its pristine exterior. He nods to himself and walks up his driveway.
Smiling, I twist back to
