Oh damn. Leave it to Claire to go there.
“I heard you used to babysit for a pair of unruly twins,” Carmen said. “Do you know whatever happened to them?”
Alice laughed. “I hear they’ve grown into nice, handsome young men.”
“Best babysitter we ever had,” Bryce said. “Cookies, milk, snuggles on the couch. Right, Beau?”
Beau’s cheeks heated up.
“There were absolutely no snuggles,” Alice said. “You two were too old, and anyway, you never sat still long enough.”
Beau reached beneath the table to grab Alice’s hand. He gave it a single squeeze, and without looking at him, she squeezed back.
There would definitely be some snuggles tonight.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Alice’s mind raced along faster than Beau’s truck. He’d asked if she needed a ride home, even though she clearly didn’t since she’d arrived with Carmen and could presumably leave with her. So, his wanting to take her home had nothing to do with the logistics of transportation.
Was he expecting a tutoring session? Was he expecting to make out again? And why couldn’t people just come out and say what they were thinking? She smiled to herself. He hadn’t asked her to dance on New Year’s Eve because of a dare. Was it possible he’d had a little crush? If so, it was quite a revelation.
He’d saved that silly picture all these years.
She glanced at him. He didn’t look the slightest bit nervous. He probably took women home all the time. She, on the other hand, felt like she might spontaneously combust. How did she look to Beau? She knew her nervous tics—ponytail tossing, lip chewing—but maybe they weren’t apparent to others. Maybe to Beau, she appeared calm, cool, and collected.
“Are you okay over there, Allie Cat? All that nervous energy is heating up the cab of my truck.”
So much for being cool. She was apparently riding along in Beau’s pickup with her hair on fire.
“I’m fine.”
“Really? Because there’s so much energy in here that my hair is standing up. You’re like one of those static balls that shoots out electricity.”
“That’s a Tesla ball, and it’s not actually—”
“You nervous about something? Because I can help you relax.”
He probably wasn’t talking Tibetan singing bowls or guided meditation. And he didn’t seem interested in hearing about Nikola Tesla or the magnetohydrodynamic effect, on which she felt dangerously close to delivering a lecture.
A warm hand landed on the back of her neck and squeezed. “Yep. You’re tense all right. Harder than marble. But luckily for you, I have magic fingers.”
He rubbed her neck, and warmth spread from the base of her skull through her shoulders. She’d had a massage once, and she’d been fairly uncomfortable and tense throughout, but Beau’s fingers had her muscles melting. Turning to liquid. And not just in her neck.
She heard a low humming sound and realized with a wave of embarrassment that it was coming from her. She’d literally moaned. “I think you do actually have magic fingers.”
Beau laughed and pulled his hand away. It was all Alice could do not to place it right back on her neck, where it belonged.
“We’re here,” Beau said, parking behind her Prius in the driveway.
Alice’s hands were sweaty. Her mouth was dry. Her heart beat so frantically that she feared Beau could hear it as he slowly turned to look at her.
She had one hand on the door handle and one hand clutching her purse.
“Allie, you look like you’re about to march to the firing squad.”
At the sound of his voice, her pulse slowed, and her heart settled back in her chest where it belonged. She let go of the door handle. “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that. But you look like you’re in fight-or-flight mode, and you don’t have to do either one.”
“It’s actually called the acute stress response, and it’s a result of—”
“I was really hoping to kiss you some more. Would that be okay?”
“Right now? Here in the driveway?”
She wanted to jump him.
She looked up and down the street. It was dark. No neighbors were out. Who would even see them?
“Sure,” Beau said. “Right here. In the driveway.”
She dug around in the sludge of thoughts and emotions racing through her head and finally found the word she needed. And even though it was in enthusiastic all caps, she could barely breathe it out because her vocal cords were no longer connected to her brain. “Okay,” she squeaked.
They simultaneously unbuckled their seat belts. And as waves of oxytocin surged through her body, Beau leaned over and kissed her. And just like the last time, it was shatteringly thorough. Hungry. There was nothing neat or tidy or quiet about it. And when Beau grabbed her ponytail and gave it a small tug, tilting her head so he could have even more access to her mouth—an alpha move—a wave of lust rolled through her.
Beau broke the kiss. His eyes seemed to have darkened a shade or two—which was not physiologically possible—as they stared deeply into hers. What did he see? He glanced at her lips, before pausing at her neck on his way to her breasts. Eyes couldn’t radiate heat, so why could she literally feel his gaze warming her skin? Beau bit his bottom lip and stared at her like he was a starving man, and she was a cupcake sitting in a bakery window.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to—”
Beau raised an eyebrow. “Eat you?”
Alice blushed over the implication. Or at least over what she suspected he was implying.
“Because I do, you know,” Beau said. “Want to eat you.”
That did it. She was dead now. He’d killed her with sexy innuendo.
He placed his lips at her ear. “I bet you taste like honey.”
He licked lightly along her jawline and then buried his face in her neck, where he kissed and sucked less gently, as if he really did want to devour her.
Alice leaned her head back and ran her fingers through his hair. He’d lost his hat. When
