Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) (17 page)

“Yee-haw,” he yelled, cocking back on his stool. “That, my dear Ms. Grant, is what I wanted to see. Some passion that’s not about what he puts between your legs.”

“Casper!” At Faith’s gasp, both Casper and Everly turned. “What in the world is going on here? I thought this was an interview, not an inquisition.”

Everly took a deep breath. “It’s my fault—”

“I doubt that,” Faith said, interrupting before Everly got out the rest of what she’d been going to say. “Casper? Explanation, please?”

“Where’s Clay?”

“He’s still at the bookstore. Kendall was busy, so I’m going back to get him at ten. Now, what’s going on here?”

“I’m just looking out for your brother,” he said, lifting his bottle to drink.

Faith grabbed it from his hand. “Boone? What’s he got to do with . . . Oh,” she said, having got a look at the color heating Everly’s face. She turned back to Casper. “And you have a problem with this, why?”

“I don’t want to see the big man get hurt.”

“Oh, cry me the Colorado River. You three cause each other more grief than any relationships with women ever could.” She looked at Everly again. “Did you get what you needed for your story?”

“I got some. I could use more.”

“And you’ll have it,” she said, and Casper groaned behind her. She reached back without looking and jabbed him in the chest. “I’ll set it up. And I’ll stick around to make sure this one behaves.”

Everly looked over Faith’s shoulder to where Casper sat pouting like a little boy who’d crossed a line. Or a man who knew he had a lot of groveling ahead of him.

And that made Everly smile.

EIGHTEEN

B
OONE WAS PARKED
outside Everly’s house when she pulled into her driveway. He knew she’d been talking to Casper. Knew that because he’d seen Clay with Faith on Main Street as the boy had parked Casper’s truck in front of Sheppard’s Books. He’d stopped to say hi as they’d climbed down, learned that Everly was at the house on Mulberry Street for Casper’s interview.

What he didn’t know was why he’d had to hear that from someone other than Everly. Granted, they hadn’t made plans for tonight. They hadn’t been making plans much at all. Except for his interview that had turned into sex for lunch in his bedroom, and supper at the Rainsong Cafe.

The rest of their time together had been spontaneous. His showing up at the paper to take her to lunch, grilling cheese sandwiches in her kitchen after exhausting them both in her bed. Her bringing a picnic out to the ranch last night, playing his piano, sitting with him while the sun went down.

They’d been doing a lot of eating. And they’d been doing a lot of talking, though he still couldn’t believe he’d spilled his guts about his past with Les Upton a couple of days ago. Their winding up in bed following that tale had been a hell of a thing, one that had stayed with him long after.

This whole Upton business was getting out of hand. Darcy seeing him parked on the road between Crow Hill and Fever Tree was no big deal. The man owned a wrecker service, and there was a bend there that too many people took too fast. Les knew where he’d find the most wrecks, just like Ned Orleans knew his speed trap there would help him meet the county’s ticket quota that he swore was an urban legend.

That’s all it was. A coincidence. Les out doing what he called a job, and Darcy unfortunately spotting him. Boone seeing him outside the Blackbird Diner, that was no more suspicious, even though explaining to Nora Stokes why he’d shot out of there had required some storytelling his folks would not have liked.

Climbing down from his truck as Everly left her SUV, he headed up the driveway toward her, arriving at her kitchen door to find her fighting the lock with her key. “Need some help?”

“I’ve got it,” she bit off, biting again with an annoyed, “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you. You know, like the other night you waited for me.” Though maybe he shouldn’t have. She didn’t like hovering, or anything unexpected. Except for him. She had said she liked him. “I figured once you finished with Casper, you’d be coming back here.”

“You knew I was with Casper?”

“I saw Faith in town.”

“And you’ve been here how long?”

She finally got the key in the lock. He watched as she fought to turn it. “Since then.”

“Why didn’t you come over to Casper’s?”

“I didn’t want to get in the way.”

“So you decided to sit out here?”

“I can go,” he said, taking a step in reverse. He was obviously in the way of something, and he could be in his own way at home without getting lip about it.

“You don’t have to go,” she said, waving a hand as the door pushed open. “Just . . . come in.”

He followed her inside, tossed his hat to the table, and crossed the room in case she preferred he keep his distance. And thinking that left him wondering if he shouldn’t just go. “How was Casper’s interview?”

“Fine.”

She cut into the word so sharply he knew it hadn’t gone fine at all. Meaning more than likely it wasn’t his showing up unannounced that had set her off. “Everly?”

“What?” She stood with her back to him, staring into her refrigerator, as if she’d find a way to avoid his question behind the cheese and the wine.

“How did Casper’s interview go?”

“I said
fine
,” she repeated with a snap as she straightened, turned, and shoved her hands into her hair.

He crossed his arms, leaned a shoulder on the frame of her kitchen door. “You won’t mind if I don’t exactly believe you.”

“Believe what you want,” she said, letting her hair fall and slamming the fridge.

Yeah . . . this wasn’t about her being annoyed at him for showing up unannounced. He’d bet, well, the ranch on it. “What did he say? Because I know Casper. And if you’re reacting like this—”

“Like what?” she asked, her brown eyes popping.

“Really?” He arched a brow. “You’re going to make me put it into words?”

“You might as well. It’s not like I haven’t been called a bitch before.”

He wanted to beat the shit outta himself for going there. “You haven’t been called one by me. And you won’t be. I figure if you’ve got a burr up your butt, Casper put it there.”

“You could say that,” she said, then blew out a long slow breath.

He moved toward the table, pulled a chair out from beneath. “Then come sit down and tell me about it.”

She took a couple of steps toward him then stopped. “I’m not sure I want to.”

“Why’s that?”

She shook her head, let it fall back on her shoulders. “Because things went south when talk turned to you. And I jumped all over Casper because of it.”

Okay. This needed a lot more explanation. “Why did you talk about me during your interview with Casper?”

“I didn’t. Or I didn’t until he basically asked me what my intentions were toward you.”

Calf nuts on a cracker.
“Criminy.”

She looked at him then, her head canted to the side. “Your partner is afraid that I’m taking you for a ride.”

That would’ve been funny if Boone hadn’t stuck his nose in Casper’s relationship. “I guess he doesn’t understand that I like that you are.”

“Is that what you think? That I’m . . . using you for sex?”

Wait a minute. Wasn’t she the one who’d made a point to tell him she had hang-ups and didn’t want anything more? “You and I are having a really good time together. And that good time includes a lot of really good sex. But none of that is any of Casper’s business. And I’ll remind him of that in the morning.”

“Don’t do that,” she said—no, she whined.

Women.
“But you just said—”

“I didn’t say for you to go try and fix anything for me.” Still whining. He waited for her to stomp her foot, thinking that would fit here. “I just told you what he said because I needed to get it off my chest.”

“Me reminding him of what’s his business and what’s not is just as much about me as you. He’s my brother-in-law as well as my business partner. And he needs a reminder.”

She blew out an exhausted breath. “I don’t want him thinking I came tattling to you so you’d go out and beat him up or whatever.”

Casper Jayne could use a beating
. “What’s wrong with running to me?”

“I’m an adult. I can take care of myself.”

“No one said you can’t. But it’s okay to lean a little bit. To ask for help.”

“Yes, but not for something like this.”

“Like what?” he asked, because he needed to be sure what she was saying.

“Like Casper . . . hurting my feelings,” she said, mumbling the last words and turning away.

Is that what this was? She’d let Casper get to her? “C’mere,” he said, circling the table and reaching for her.

She dropped her gaze to the floor, scuffed the toe of another very expensive shoe against the tiles. “I’m being dumb.”

“No you’re not. You’re being honest,” he said, hooking an arm around her neck and bringing her close. “I like that.”

“I don’t know why,” she said, and pouted. “It’s really pretty pathetic.”

“Hey, you,” he said, brushing the pad of his thumb over a speck of loose makeup at the corner of her eye. “There’s nothing pathetic about standing up for yourself.”

“But over something so insignificant—”

“It’s important to you,” he said, stepping back and nudging up her chin. “That makes it significant.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re hoping to get laid.”

“I am hoping to get laid.” The smell of dew on grass rose from her hair and he breathed deep. “But I’m saying that because it’s true. I don’t like hearing you rag on yourself for something that hurt. Even if it seems like something small.”

She shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”

“You don’t need to get over it. Own it. And then let me make you feel better.”

He leaned down, brushed his lips over hers once, twice, waited for her to relax and join him here in the moment, to leave her confrontation with Casper behind. It took her longer than he’d thought it might, yet he didn’t push, he just kissed her, moving his mouth along her jaw to her ear, nuzzling his cheek to hers, his chin against her neck, his beard rough.

She shivered, once, twice, and reached for his hand, bringing it up to cover her breast. “Feel that?”

He nodded, skated the flat of his palm over her hard nipple, his cock twitching.

“Your beard does that every time. The way it scratches.”

“Then I promise never to shave before seeing you. If you like it that much.”

“I do. It tickles, but it’s so much more. Like you’re scraping every one of my nerve endings. And when you’re between my legs . . .”

“I’ve wondered about that. If it hurts. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to feel it rubbing against my business.”

“You never know. You might love it.”

He wouldn’t, but no need to press the point. He liked her skin, her face, her lips and mouth and tongue. He liked soft and wet and insistent, and she gave him everything, gave him all of it. Gave him so much pleasure he doubted she knew. “I’d much rather have
you
rubbing against me.”

She reached down to fondle the bulge in his jeans. “Like this?”

The sound that came out of his mouth was a soft moan. The one rumbling up from his gut was not soft at all. “Do it again,” he said, and she squeezed and he moaned, and she squeezed even longer this time, her mouth seeking out his, her tongue finding his, her body melting into his, charming, lustful, a mix of so many tenors and tones he was drunk with it.

“Should we take this to the bedroom?” he asked, his lips at her ear.

“I don’t want to move,” she told him, moving anyway, her thighs on his, her fingertips in his hair. She stepped into him fully, crushing her breasts to his chest, lifting up onto her tiptoes to reach places her three-inch heels didn’t.

He could’ve stayed where he was for hours, except for the fact that he couldn’t get to her the way he wanted, and so he bent his knees, cupped the backs of her thighs, and picked her up. Her legs went around his waist and on his way from the kitchen to the living room, her shoes fell, one then the other, leaving him with her skinny blue pants and a host of buttons holding her blouse in place.

She giggled as she kissed his neck, one arm hooked around it, the other massaging tiny circles on his scalp and making it hard to walk. He reached the living room, found the couch and backed up to it, falling down and taking her with him to straddle his lap.

“We probably shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, her arms still around his neck as he started in on her buttons.

He was frowning when he asked, “Why not?”

“The riding thing. Me on your lap. I don’t want to prove Casper right.”

“Fuck Casper. And fuck your buttons.”

She looked down to his hands, back up to his eyes. Hers blazed. “It’s an old blouse.”

“That so,” he said, thinking what it would sound like to send two dozen tiny crystal buttons flying across her hardwood floor. “Still looks like someone could get some good use from it.”

“You could be that someone.”

“Yeah?”

He placed a finger in the hollow of her throat, ran it down the long line of buttons. She shivered when he crossed the valley between her breasts, shivered again when he dipped into her belly button. Her last shiver came when he reached the end of the line, the final button, the hem of the long blouse falling to a V between her spread legs.

He toyed with the button there, holding it with his index finger and rolling it side to side against her mound. She closed her eyes, let her head fall back. A shudder ran through her, and he watched it happen . . . watched her throat work, her nipples draw tight, her chest rise and fall as she tried to breathe. He was having just as much trouble breathing, and it was all because of seeing her, feeling her, the changes in her body as she readied to take him.

He was ready to take her. Lust felt like fingers dragging over the skin of his thighs, like teeth nipping along the trail of hair down the center of his stomach. Like lips squeezing the head of his cock. Like a tongue pushing up between his balls. All that, and he hadn’t even touched her. Just her damn button, playing it like he would her clit, and against her clit, making her writhe in his lap.

With his free hand, he reached between her legs, drawing the long side of his fingers up the seam of her pants and that of her pussy’s lips. She was hot and damp and he pushed up into her, moving back and forth, flicking over what parts of her he could feel through the cloth.

She shoved her fingers into his hair and tugged, pulling his head back so he had to look up at her. “Take off my clothes. All of them. I want to be naked with you.”