LITMIR.BIZ

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that wasn’t true. He’d always been bold—with the girls he’d wanted.

      He just hadn’t ever wanted her.

      “I don’t bleach it anymore.” Despite being annoyed, awareness trembled in her belly, sang through her veins. “This is my real color.”

      His long fingers tunneled in close to her scalp, warm and gentle, then lifted outward, letting the silky strands drift back into place. “I can’t see it that well here in the shadows.”

      Her breath came too fast. “Light brown.”

      “I never really understood why you lightened it.” He stroked her hair again, totally absorbed in what he did, unmindful or uncaring of her discomfort. “Or why you wore so much makeup.”

      She refused to apologize for or explain about her past. That was one of the things Damon had taught her—to forget about what she couldn’t change and only look forward. “I thought it looked good at the time, but then, I was only seventeen and not overly astute.”

      Casey stood silent for only a minute. “Why don’t we sit in the car? The air is pretty damp tonight.”

      Being that she was already far too aware of him, she didn’t consider that a good idea. But the dog had heard him and, not wanting to be left out, quickly went through the open driver’s door and performed an agile leap into the backseat.

      Emma gave a mental shrug and scooted inside, leaving Casey to go to the passenger side. The consummate gentleman, he closed her door first before walking around the hood of the car. When he slid into his seat, she had only a moment to appreciate the sharp angles and planes of his face fully lit by the interior light. He closed his door too, and the light clicked off with a sort of symbolic finality that made her senses come alive.

      Casey twisted sideways in his seat and spoke in a low vibrating murmur. “Better turn off the headlights, Em, or you’ll have a dead battery to go with the busted water pump.”

      Though Emma knew he was right, she hated to be in utter darkness with him. Her awareness of him as a man defied reason.

      He hadn’t touched her, but God, she felt as if he had. All over.

      “There’s a flashlight in the glove box.”

      Casey opened the small door, moved a few papers aside and pulled out the black-handled utility light. He didn’t hand it to her, didn’t turn it on, but instead held it in his lap. She turned off the headlights and inky blackness settled in around them. Emma wondered if he could hear the wild pounding of her heart.

      Her reactions irritated her as much as they distressed her. No other man had ever affected her this way. She’d had plenty of relationships since she’d grown up, and she’d assumed her tepid reactions had been mostly due to maturing, to wising up, to learning what was best for her. She’d accepted that sex was pleasurable but not vital. It eased an ache, provided comfort, added to the closeness, and nothing more.

      Yet, sitting in a dark car next to Casey Hudson, she felt the biting greed of lust in a way that hadn’t touched her since…since the last time she’d been this near him.

      “So what have you been doing with yourself?” he asked, and Emma started in surprise.

      “What?”

      “It’s been a long time.” His voice held the same easy cadence she remembered from long ago, but there was an edge to it now. An edge to him. “You disappeared without a trace, so I’m just wondering what you’ve been up to.”

      Emma didn’t want to get into this now. He wouldn’t understand and she wasn’t up to explaining. In truth, it wasn’t any of his business what she did or had done while she’d been away from Buckhorn. But telling him so would have been too ballsy, even for her, and would have made her sound defensive.

      Keeping her answer vague, she shrugged. “Working, like most people I guess.”

      She braced herself for the questions that would follow, and wondered at the hesitation she felt in explaining her job to him. Damn it, she loved her job and was proud of herself for doing it so well.

      But Casey took her off guard by skipping her occupation and going straight to a more difficult topic.

      “You and Damon involved?”

      Anger flashed through Emma, pushing some of the sexual awareness aside. Regardless of their pasts, she didn’t deserve an inquisition.

      “Are you and Kristin?” Her voice sounded sharper than she’d intended, but Casey just laughed.

      “No.” His white teeth gleamed in the darkness. “As I said, she’s a co-worker, a friend. No more than that.”

      Emma shook her head. Men could be so dense. “So you say. My guess is that she wants to be considerably more.”

      Casey touched her cheek, a casual gesture that felt hotly intimate and made her breath catch. “Yeah, well, I can be stubborn when I want to be.”

      She almost replied I remember, but caught herself in time. His honesty provoked her own. “Damon and I are friends.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      She didn’t care if he believed her or not. She didn’t. She turned away to stare out the window, letting Casey know without words that he could think what he wanted.

      “If you were homely,” Casey teased, “then I could maybe believe it. But Em?” He waited just long enough to make her antsy. “You’re far from homely.”

      She tried to ignore him. The field to her left sounded with a thousand insects: the buzz of mosquitoes, the singing of crickets. Like stars in the sky, fireflies twinkled on and off.

      She hadn’t forgotten that Buckhorn was beautiful in the summer, but somehow the clarity of it had been blunted. The colors, the smells, the texture of the air and the lush grass and the velvet sky…

      Casey stroked one finger over her cheek, down to her throat, then her shoulder. “Hell, if anything, you’re more attractive than ever, and you were plenty attractive at seventeen.”

      Her heart punched painfully against her rib cage. How had the conversation gotten out of hand so quickly? Her laugh sounded more believable this time. “I’m guessing you must have lowered your standards.”

      Casey stared at her, not comprehending.

      Emma rolled her eyes. “I’ve been in the car all day, Case. I’m dressed in what can only be called my comfortable clothes—and that’s if I’m being generous. No makeup, my hair’s windblown…”

      “You look sexy as hell to me.”

      The way he growled that pronouncement robbed Emma of clear thought. She searched her brain for something to say, some way to derail him. “How long will it take Damon to get back, do you think?”

      Casey didn’t take the hint. He didn’t stop touching her either. He smoothed her hair behind her ear and curled his fingers around her head. “Men only pretend to be friends with women to get one thing.”

      Goaded, Emma shifted around to face him. His hand dropped, but his gaze, glittering in the darkness, remained steady.

      Even the gearshift between them didn’t hinder Casey’s movements. He got so close that Emma inhaled the warmth of his masculine smell on every breath.

      “Is that right?” Her voice shook, her hands trembled. “Then I guess we’re enemies, because there’s never been a single thing you wanted from me.”

      Beneath the fall of her hair, Casey’s hand curved around her neck in a gentle restraint that felt far too unbreakable. Trying to be inconspicuous, she pressed into the car door. It didn’t help.

      With near-tactile intensity, his gaze stroked her face, then rested on her mouth.

      “True.” There was a heavy, thrumming beat of silence, and Casey whispered, “Until now.”

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