LITMIR.BIZ

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his fingertips tease the warm sleek skin of her shoulder. “Boyfriend isn’t into Mixed Martial Arts?”

      After peeking up at him, she said, “If I had a boyfriend, would I be sitting here like this with you?” Satisfied that she’d labeled the picture properly, she tucked her phone away in her purse.

      “Why not?” He pressed his thigh to hers. “We’re friends.”

      She seemed preoccupied with reading the front of his T-shirt. After a shaky indrawn breath, she looked away. “I don’t have a boyfriend—but if I did, I doubt he’d like me getting so close to you.”

      “No boyfriend.” He ran his hand down her ponytail and found her hair every bit as silky as he remembered. Expanding lust made his voice lower and huskier. “California guys are blind?”

      “I had been dating, but...” She rearranged her purse, her drink, looked around as if seeking a distraction.

      Cannon had a feeling she kept busy just to avoid answering. “But what?”

      She folded her hands together on the tabletop. “We split up a little before I bought the ticket.”

      For reasons he didn’t want to explore too much, he was glad to know she wasn’t with anyone else. He gave her ponytail a gentle tug. “I’m sorry.”

      “It’s okay. Things hadn’t been going well anyway, so I’m glad I didn’t waste the experience with him.”

      He liked how she put that, as if seeing him fight had been special.

      “My best friend wanted to go, but she couldn’t get off work. So I went alone.” She lifted her narrow shoulders. “No big deal.”

      “Cheap seats?”

      “What?” Confusion brought her gaze back to his.

      He’d remembered her eyes as a striking green, but he’d forgotten how it made him feel when she looked right at him. She had that absorbed, heated look a woman got while straining toward an orgasm.

      Damn. He blew out a careful breath, determined to get his lust under wraps. “At the venue. How far were you from the action?”

      “Oh.” Once again fascinated with the logo on his shirt, she murmured, “Club seats. They weren’t too bad.”

      Without even thinking about it, Cannon continued to play with her hair. “I could have gotten you floor seats if you’d let me know.”

      “It wouldn’t be right to ask you for a favor like that! And besides, the floor seats didn’t appeal to me.”

      “How come?” Most everyone he knew coveted the limited vantage point.

      “It looked like they had their own party going on. No one was really watching the fights. The guys were all going back and forth for drinks and the women were all flirting.”

      True enough. The ladies often showed up dressed for a club atmosphere and hopeful of hooking up. “I take it you didn’t plan to flirt?”

      She shot him a guilty look that he didn’t understand. “I never do.”

      “Never, huh?” That’d be a shame. He remembered her as being really good at it. He settled his hand on her shoulder again. “Why stop now?”

      “Because it was wrong!” As if she hadn’t meant to say that, she turned her face away. Even in the dim light of the bar, Cannon could see the blush on her cheeks. Seconds ticked by before she spoke again, this time quieter, more composed. “I know I used to be a terrible flirt.”

      That was so opposite of what he’d been thinking, he smiled. “Nothing terrible about it.” She’d just gotten out of high school—though at the time he hadn’t realized that she’d fallen behind and was older than most graduates. “Everyone flirts at that age.”

      Shaking her head, she denied that. Nervously, she pulled her ponytail over her shoulder so she could play with a lock of hair, winding it repeatedly around two fingers. “I was bad, always eyeing you like I did.”

      “Hey.” Squeezing her shoulder, he hugged her a little. “I liked it.”

      Her soft lips tweaked to the side. “You did not. You avoided me when you could, and when you couldn’t, you were careful not to be too familiar. I understand why now. But back then...”

      Gently, he touched her chin, lifting her face so she met his gaze. “You’re one of the prettiest, sexiest women I’ve ever met. Of course I liked it when you looked at me.” But he’d thought her too young, and he’d been so determined to make it in MMA that, as she’d said, he’d avoided her.

      She sounded strained when she whispered, “Thank you.”

      Watching her fingers stroke in and around her hair made him think about her fingers on him—teasing him the same way.

      He wondered what she was thinking, if her mind had wandered into the same sexual arena as his.

      “I don’t want to make excuses.”

      “About?”

      “How I...came on to you. It’s just that after so many years of uncertainty, I’d finally finished school and was able to get a little independent. Not that I was planning to leave Grandpa.”

      “I know.” She’d been very dedicated to Tipton, and vice versa.

      Her gaze shifted away. “I loved him so much.”

      “He loved you a lot, too.”

      Her lips pursed, then curved with banked happiness. “He used to get after me for flirting. He said I was inviting trouble.”

      At the time, Cannon had considered her the trouble. “I’d always assumed you were just eighteen.” Later, before leaving, she’d told him she was almost twenty.

      As if that embarrassed her all over again, her pleasure faded. “It’s not that I was dumb or that I screwed off in school.”

      “I know that.” Because her parents had died when she was thirteen, she’d spent the rest of that school year grieving and got held back. Then for the year after that, different relatives shuffled her around from state to state, no one wanting to keep her.

      Until she’d landed with Tipton Sweeny. But again, she’d missed so much schooling....

      “I felt dumb,” she admitted. “Most of the kids knew I was older. Especially the boys.”

      Cannon could imagine how they’d hit on her. With the way she looked, she’d have been every high school boy’s wet dream.

      She tugged at that lock of hair a little more before flipping it back behind her shoulder and putting both hands on the tabletop.

      She did that often, catching herself and slipping back behind that mask of poise.

      “You were so different,” she said. “I guess that’s why I always felt safe teasing you.”

      Safe. An odd word to use. “If it’s any consolation, I had to concentrate real hard to resist you.”

      Biting back a laugh, she nudged him. “You are such a fibber.”

      “It’s true.” And now, being older, she was even more appealing. And he no longer had to resist.

      Maybe gathering her thoughts, she sat silent for a moment. Tipton wanted him to be there for her, to make things easier, so Cannon waited patiently, giving her time—strangely content just to be with her.

      When she looked at him this time, she kept her gaze deliberately direct. “After that, I proved what a coward I am.” Loathing sounded in her tone. “That was even worse than the infantile flirting.”

      He was here for Tipton, Cannon reminded himself. But Tipton was far from his mind as his fingertips grazed her jaw, his thumb smoothing over her downy cheek. “That’s not true.”

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