Page 7 of Carry Me Home
“Behind the bar,” I said.
His gaze tracked my movements as I finished cleaning up. I could feel it on my skin, hot and teasing, like a physical touch. Awareness shimmered through my body, a heady rush that made my hands vibrate and my stomach swoop. I would call it a premonition if I believed in all that woo-woo stuff, which I didn’t. What I did believe in was chemistry and straight-up horniness and right now the pheromones coming off both of us were enough to choke an elephant.
I squatted behind the bar by the old pine cabinet where we kept odds and ends, angling my backside away from Jack’s all-seeing gaze. These jeans tended to give me plumber’s crack and that wasn’t a good look on anyone. I pushed aside the notebook and colored pencils I kept for doodling when things were slow and located the deck of cards that were floppy from years of use. They were faded but each card was a work of art, if you considered paintings of pinup girls to be art, which I did.
“What are we playing?” I asked, setting the deck on the bar top between us.
Jack’s blue eyes dropped to the bare-breasted Marilyn Monroe card on top. The tiniest twitch of his eyebrow was the only sign that he saw it at all. “Poker?” he suggested.
I shook my head. “I’m too gullible for poker. Can’t lie and can’t read people to save my life,” I confessed. “A man could run out of a bank with cash spilling from his pockets and a bandana over his face, alarm bells ringing, but if he told me it wasn’t what it looked like, I’d hear him out.”
He laughed andwhooshwent my stomach. There was nothing as blue as Jack’s eyes when he laughed. “Rummy, then. Although, for the record, I think you’re selling yourself short, Janie. Unless you’re just bluffing.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I pulled the jacks out since we wouldn’t be using them and split the deck in half, then shuffled the only way I knew how, pushing the cards against my thumbs so they alternated falling together, bits of tits and ass flashing as they went.
“I mean you’re reading me just fine.”
He kept his gaze on my hands like he knew eye contact would be too much for us to handle right then. Too honest. That frisson of awareness danced down my spine again, but I pretended it didn’t. Pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about or where this was going. I wanted to wrap all that delicious tension around me like a cloak and burrow into it. It had been so long since I had felt anything like this.
“Nine card draw, aces high,” I said, laying down the rules.
“Aces are low if they’re paired with a number card,” he countered.
“No, aces are always high. Fifteen points for aces, ten for face cards, five for number cards.”
His head tilted as he thought that through. “Why?”
“Because they’re pretty.”
“As good a reason as any, I suppose.” His eyes drifted over my face, and I felt warm all over. “Hard to resist something pretty.”
I rolled my eyes. “Was that a line, soldier?”
“Not a line. A confession.” His lips quirked. “And I’m not a soldier.”
He drained the last of his beer on a long swallow, his head tipped back to expose his throat. My mouth went dry. Goddamn. How was everything this man did so damn sexy? Just…how?
“Hm.” I gave him a sterndon’t try it, misterlook despite the fact that I absolutely wanted him to try it and butterflies were swooping dizzily in my belly becauseahhhh! Jack Price thinks I’m pretty!The gawky teenage girl inside me was about to embarrass us both.
He gave me an impish smile and I melted further. With an exasperated huff, I pushed the deck at him. He rapped his knuckles once on the top card, a show of trust, and I dealt the cards, alternating between us until we had nine each.
“Another beer before we get into it?” I asked.
“It’s what, seven-thirty? I’ll take one more.”
I glanced at my watch before pivoting to the fridge. “Seven thirty-three,” I said over my shoulder as a confirmation, not a correction. “Lucky guess.”
He smirked. “I was rounding.”
I laughed as I set the bottle down in front of him. “Is that your special talent? You never lose track of time?”
His blue eyes locked on mine as he wrapped his long, thick fingers around the base of the beer bottle. His thumb absently stroked up and down the neck, condensation forming in its wake. My own neck broke out in goosebumps like I could feel his touch on my nape. “I never lose track of anything.”
Me. You lost track of me. I bit the words back. They weren’t even true. You couldn’t lose track of something you never knew existed, and I hadn’t existed for Jack. I couldn’t expect him to remember a half-hour spent with a little kid twenty years ago. That sting I felt was wounded pride. Because maybe back in high school I had suspected he didn’t think of me the way I thought of him, but now I knew for sure.
But tonight…tonight I could give him something worth remembering.
“How long are you home for?” I asked, studying my cards to cover my flushed cheeks.
