Page 14 of Hooking Up

“Enough! Take it outside and rest assured that neither of you will be laying a hand, lip—or any other body part you want to find still attached to your body—on me!” She twisted her hand in the cloth covering Quint’s chest. His warm, steely flesh beneath ignited her, but she managed to propel him toward the door, open it and shove him out.

When she returned for Carter, she found him grinning at her with that slow, bad-boy smile that made all her lady parts sit up and beg. Pushing through her need, she latched onto his ear.

He yowled. She tossed him out after his buddy and slammed the door. Then she whirled, panting, quivering with pent-up need to straddle not one cowboy but two, and ride herself into a state of full exhaustion.

Her gaze settled on the box of medicine they hadn’t taken with them.

Grabbing it, she stomped to the door and hurled it out at their astonished faces. When she slammed the door again, she couldn’t stop a small giggle from escaping. Now that they knew she’d toyed with them both, they could go off and beat each other up.Or snore and nose-whistle each other to death.

Her laugh burst out, freeing some of her tension after being trapped with two sexy cowboys she couldn’t decide between. Now she wouldn’t have to make a choice, because they were both off the table. In one swoop, she’d ended things before they’d begun.

No, she didn’t have a cure for what ailed them in her medicine box, but now she could set to work on fixing her messed-up head.

*

Carter stared at Bella’s door, a half-smile creeping over his face. “Damn, she’s a tornado a man would want to roll around with for all his years.”

“Too many bullets shooting out of that pretty lipstick-coated mouth, but damn if I don’t want to stay here and take a few more hits.” Quint shook himself and then looked at Carter—hard. “You finally going to admit you want her?”

“I never denied I do. I just don’t think it’s your business.”

“It’s my business when she’s playing with both of us. She let you kiss her?”

“Yeah.” Carter drew up to his full height, meeting his friend’s challenging tone.

“What else did you do with her?”

Carter wasn’t about to admit that Bella had shut him down and avoided him ever since. “None of your business.” He turned and started walking away.

Quint’s strides ate up the distance in a blink. “Did you sleep with her?”

“You’re not very bright, are you? I’ve been in that hotel room with you for weeks. Do you honestly think if I had Bella in my hands, I’d spend less than a full night loving her?”

Quint snorted. “So you haven’t had her.”

Slowing his gait, Carter shot his friend a look. “Have you?” He didn’t want to hear the answer, yet he wasn’t about to chase a woman who was spoken for. If there was a glimmer of a chance with Bella, though…

“I’m of the same mind as you, bro. I wouldn’t come back to a hotel room and listen to you snore if I had.”

They walked in silence for a minute, meandering through the parking lot to their truck. Carter glanced at the meds he’dscooped off the asphalt. “Think she means to kill us with these pills so we leave her alone?”

Quint’s low chuckle echoed the amusement Carter felt. Their friendship had survived everything from losing streaks to injuries to bad attitudes. They wouldn’t let a woman get between them.

Except she obviously liked both or she wouldn’t have let them close enough to grab her and kiss her. Bella was savvy enough to evade them if she’d really wanted, and she didn’t want to. Carter had detected the rapid rise and fall of her chest while in the trailer. Her lowered lashes, the way she dashed her wet, pink tongue over her lower lip…

Unless he was totally off, she was turned on by them being there.

“Look, I’m not feeling great about any of this. Just keep your distance today, okay?” Quint tugged his cowboy hat lower over his eyes.

“Oh that’ll be easy considering we’re stuck in a truck together.” Carter tried to tip the scales of his partner’s grumpiness, but Quint just glared at him from under the brim of his battered hat.

“You can take the meds first. Hopefully Bella was wrong and you can knock yourself out.”

Irritation was a long snake slithering through Carter’s chest. “Fine by me.”

“Good.”

They climbed into the truck and slammed their doors. Carter popped two pills and chased them with a bottle of warm, flat soda. Then he settled down for a long drive with his moody friend. Unfortunately, Bella wasn’t wrong about the medication. Carter was wide awake and thinking very clearly—about Bella’s sweet lips and the way she’d looked into his eyes.

---