Just Want Somebody to Love (Bella Warren Book 1) (21 page)

“And friends are bad?”

“I didn’t say that.”

She sank back in her chair, wondering what this was supposed to mean. “Now I’m not sure what we are.”

A sparkle lit his eye as his brow lifted. “We should go have sex right now so we can define ourselves.”

She laughed.

“Long, all afternoon, sweaty sex. The sweatier the better.”

She pulled at her snug shirt. Not a bad plan, but she didn’t know if it was a good idea. “People can still have sex and not be in a relationship. That’s what we were last time. Having all that sex, as tempting as you’re making it, doesn’t define us, but could leave us more confused.”

“True.” He leaned back and rested his arm on the chair. “But we’d be so tired I don’t think we’d care.”

“I still don’t know what I want from you.” She breathed, getting more and more tempted by his plan for the afternoon. At least he had a plan. “And you still don’t know what you want from me.”

His gaze darkened as his eyes glanced to her chest and back up. “Not entirely, no.”

Right. Except for that. She agreed with wanting more of what he thought. It was just, was that all there was to them? She tapped her thumbs on her desk. “Sex got us in this position.”

He lifted a finger in the air. “ I think it was lack of sex last night that brought us to this conversation.”

“But having sex to begin with started this off. If not for sex, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know.” An idea rooted. Kara did this with Wade and it worked.

He sighed. “I am so confused with what to do with you.”

“I’m starting to think clearly.”

“Glad one of us is.”

“Sex is complicating things and jumbling us up. We should stop having it, stop talking about it and thinking about it until we figure this out.” As soon as the words left her mouth, the flashing lights announcing
Mistake! Big mistake ahead!
sounded off.

He leaned away, looking horrified. “Sex is a stress-reliever. We should never stop having it.”

“Oh, good. I regretted it the moment I said something.” They were on the same page somehow, somewhere. “So now we’re at?”

“Me finding you naked upstairs in five minutes?”

Her throat got seriously tight. “They’ll be calling for lunch soon.”

“Wade said there were ten or fifteen minutes, and we wasted half of that with talking.”

Well then, they should just never talk again. By the state of her dry mouth, good plan.

He pushed out of the chair. “I’m thinking we have five to seven minutes.”

“Yes,” she managed to squeak out. Then he walked to the door.

He flicked it shut with two fingers and stared at the knob with an increasing frown. “Does this thing lock? I don’t want your mom to walk in on us.”

So much heat was going through her with the speed of a freight train. She shook her head. “No lock.”

“That needs to be fixed.”

“Nobody comes here anymore.”

“This big house on this busy property and nobody walks in the door?”

She escaped the backside of her desk. “Not anymore.” As she stopped in front of him, she didn’t waste time and got right on the row of buttons down the front of him. “They used to. It was constant traffic all the time. Even when it wasn’t planting season, it seemed like people were always in and out. Momma and Daddy liked to have the house welcome to anyone, day or night.”

His hands tangled with her shirt as he lifted it and found his way underneath the cotton. “Sounds like it was the place to be.”

“It was.” She lifted a shoulder. Probably next year she’d be more used to the silence in the house. It was just, in a word, weird to not hear the creak of the back screen door followed by the wood spanking the house. For years she thought it was crazy her parents welcomed whatever teenager in during the night so no one would be drinking and driving. Or sleeping and driving. All paths in the woods could lead to their house. Not that they were random people they didn’t know. Whoever came were friends of Tate, Wade, or hers.

Justin stared, waiting to hear more. She shrugged a shoulder. “Then Wade finished his house and married Kara. People go there now instead.”

“Why not here?”

“Food. Everyone knows the best they’ll find to eat here is a frozen waffle, and I may or may not have syrup or butter.”

He looked puzzled, but that didn’t stop the slow caress of his fingertips on the curve of her waist. “But you have coffee. It’s the meal of champions.”

She laughed. “I do have coffee. But they have coffee too. And fresh cookies and cupcakes and Kara can make whatever you can think up. With my mom in town too?” She shook her head. “Request it and check back in a few hours. That’s the new happening place to be, and I get privacy.”

“Sounds lonely.”

Another shrug. “Just different. I’m adjusting.”

“If you’re all alone over here, how come your mom didn’t stay here with you?”

Nail on the head. He barely knew her and yet, how did he do that? Something lodged in her throat. “Convenience. They’re up before sunrise working on breakfast.”

“So it’s just you, all alone, in this big house?”

“Yep.”

“We might have to fix that.”

Oh, hello lovely heat. Come sit by her and chase away all this nasty talk. She eased in closer to absorb his warmth. Take in the spicy scent of his skin at his neck. “Since Mom isn’t staying here, that could be arranged.”

His lips were ever so close. “Since I’m fixing this emptiness in your house, you know what this means, right?”

“That we get to have sex tonight.”

He laughed. “That’s true. But since I’m fixing it for you here, you should come to my house and fix it for me.”

“In Dallas?”

He nodded and his lips sealed over hers. Holy heck, she’d remembered him being amazing at this, but a memory clouded with feelings of his hands all over her body just didn’t do this kiss justice.

Her phone buzzed and trilled from her desktop, and he pulled away. They both knew what that meant. She sighed. “Way too much talking this time.”

He cupped her cheek and turned her face to his. “Start picking out your next pair of panties with me in mind of taking them off.”

She swallowed and nodded. She’d been picking out her underwear with him in mind ever since he took off the last pair.

Nothing more than a shimmering, thin strip of deep orange color dipping low remained over Justin’s shoulder. The bright half-full moon offered enough light to brighten the tops of the trees. He didn’t need either to follow Whitney. He’d follow her in pitch black darkness and could do so off the vanilla scent coming from her hair.

She slowed and stared at the tree line with her breath heavy. “It’s somewhere along this spot.” She laughed. “I think.”

“I have one hundred percent faith in you.”

She pushed at some branches and flashed her light in the thicket. “Okay, I’m pretty sure this is right.”

“At least we can still find our way back at this point.”

She blinded him with her flashlight. “Funny man. Laugh it up. I’ve heard them all before. A woman and a blonde, I’m just a blind squirrel lucky to get a nut every now and then. I know my way well enough from this direction. It’s through the woods from the other side that I’m not sure about. You have to take a couple of turns that way.”

He could only wonder how many people made it out alive after making that joke. It was all too easy to picture his head on a stick. “I would never say, or think, such a thing about you.”

“Good. I’ll continue liking you.” She turned to the woods. “I have a really good sense of direction. It’s been a while, but I can still picture the skinny trails and paths I made through here.”

With the way it’d grown up, nothing would be the same, but he had a feeling she’d know where to go and how to get them back. In a way, he wanted to high-five himself for the thought to throw her name at his brother for this whole stupid thing. When this was all said and done, he’d consider thanking Brandon for putting him through the hassle.

She stepped forward and leaned around with her light. He could picture a cute-ass squint marring her brows. “Here we go. I used to run as fast as I could to this spot and all but dive in the trees here.”

The way the light caught across the branches took him back to his old hometown. The twisted darkness of those woods offered a lot of escape and privacy from narrowed-eyed looks from people who were convinced their shit didn’t stink because they had money in their pocket.

On one hand he should thank them. Because of dicks like his friends’ parents, Justin learned long ago assholes hid everywhere.

Whitney stepped on winding vines and made a hole. She studied her work, then eased through. “Watch your step. Snakes are probably out.”

His brow lifted. “I live in the city now. It wasn’t always that way.”

Her mouth opened as she waved her hand in his direction. “I forget.”

“I’m not sure, but I think my manhood has just been insulted.”

She laughed. “I’ve seen your manhood, and you have no need to feel insulted. Ever.” She lifted a branch. “This part is full of thorns.”

Proving her warning, she hissed. She licked a finger and rubbed the scratched spot on her arm and turned back to give him light.

Barbs caught on his arms and pulled at his jeans as he stepped through. “I have no idea how you made it through there fast when you were younger.”

“I don’t remember them being there. I was also smaller and chasing after boys. I think a few times I could have broken a leg and wouldn’t have noticed.”

He laughed as he followed. “I know how you feel.”

He pushed a row of thorns aside with his elbow and couldn’t help but feel that old-time giddiness in the pit of his belly as the trees surrounded him. Back then under the cover of trees, he could be anyone. Do anything.

He spent time with this brother dreaming up ideas for the future in a place like Bella Warren. They retreated to the woods where they were protected from nasty gossip. In the trees, they’d been doctors and lawyers and took turns being president. They got to be successful when everyone said they were too dumb, too poor, and wouldn’t amount to anything but worthless boys.

She glanced over her shoulder, a smile lighting her face so much that she didn’t even need that flashlight. “Well? Is it what you hoped?”

He grinned and eased alongside her. “It’s private and just you and me. I can’t complain.”

She continued forward. “It is private. I think it was half the appeal for why I skipped away in here. I got to escape.”

Her—escape? That sounded like the kind of thing he needed to hear to help his plans. “Was there a lot you needed to get away from?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Yes and no.”

Good. He enjoyed the yes part the most. Something about her lurked just under the surface that said she itched to get out of this town. He wanted to explore that further. “There were some woods about half a mile up the road where we lived. Brandon and I played there a lot.”

“I thought that’s what the corn field was for?”

He chuckled. “That happened when we got older. It was closer and if you had a girl willing to take off her pants, you didn’t waste time running half a mile away.”

She laughed. “Very true. What kind of things did y’all play?”

“Anything and everything.” So long as they were successful. If they were cops, there were pretend robbers. In the military? Pretend bad guys. They were always a team, for as long as he could remember, until Brandon moved here and left him to run their team solo, changing a lifetime of dreams.

She stepped over a limb. “I liked to be a pirate.”

“No way.”

She lifted her brow at him, then sprinted the length of a downed tree. She got to the high end and thrust the flashlight forward like a sword. “Avast, ye maties!”

He laughed. “Of all things. Why a pirate? I would have pegged you for a princess.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she gestured to a squiggly branch cutting off the main trunk with her makeshift sword. “Scallywag! Say that again and ye’ll be dancing with the sharks!”

He put his hands up in forgiveness. “Apologies.”

She nodded and straightened. “Some princess were cool, but pirates though…way more awesome. They were always after some adventure or another. They were fearless.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Criminals.”

She picked her way across the top of the log. “Perhaps. But they took and did whatever they wanted without needing a reason, aside from it was what they loved. They didn’t have to explain themselves to anyone.”

Interesting. If he played certain childhood games for a reason, it stood to reason she probably had too. “And you did?”

She dipped her head and turned away. “Sometimes. I think we all do at some point. Part of life, isn’t it?”

“I make a point to avoid explaining myself whenever possible.” He pushed his hands in his pockets. “Take me as I am or don’t at all. Makes no difference to my life either way.”

She stared at him, and he got the notion she was attempting to pity him. “That’s sad.”

Yep. That was pity. Misplaced, unneeded, and unwanted pity. “Not sure how it can be sad. I don’t live up to anyone’s expectations but my own. And that bar is set pretty damn high.”

“But always? That must be lonely.”

He laughed. “Only when I’m surrounded by people who don’t approve.”

“Fair point.”

“Which begs the question, you are?” He cleared his throat. “That is, surrounded by people who stop you from being what you want.”

“It’s not that I’m not liked—I am.” She bent and tapped on the old bark she stood on. “It’s just, sometimes I think if I was different, I would be liked more. Like if I had any interest in cooking.” Her gazed lifted to him while she fidgeted with her lips. “You know, then I wonder if…” She looked back. “I wonder if I’d have more in common and be closer to…other people who liked to cook.”

That image of the first time he stayed for dinner surfaced. Her mom and Kara behind the counter working around each other with an ease that said it happened a lot. Whitney had been on the other side of the counter. Countless other moments came to him as he’d seen her mom and Kara together the last few days while Whitney hadn’t been around. As he looked at Whitney crouched on that dead tree, a little part of his chest ached. “I’m sure you and your mom have a lot in common in different ways. You’re her daughter, and while I haven’t been around long, I know she loves you a lot.”