Love Me: The Complete Series (13 page)

Beers in hand, he returned to the seat and handed hers over. “Abby, just to be sure there are no more surprises … Are you seeing anyone right now? Like Jackson or Roger, or any of my other friends?”

Her eyes popped open and she spit the gulp of beer back into the cup as she choked. “Roger? Are you kidding me? You really think I’d date—him?”

He held up a hand and shrugged. “I never would have thought you’d go for Jackson, but obviously you did. Roger? He’s really a nice guy once you get to know him. Most girls don’t ever get to that point because he sucks at first impressions.”

“You’re right about that.” She set the beer down and entwined her fingers on her knees. “I’m not seeing Roger—or Jackson—or anyone at the moment. Are you?”

“I’m not sure. There’s this one girl.” He winked and took a sip from his glass. “She’s cute and likes everything I do. Kisses great, but … ”

Abby’s hurt registered and he knew he’d better not take it too far. She looked away.

“She always has dirt under her fingernails. It’s not a big deal really because she works with plants. She covers the dirt by painting the nails with this awesome red polish. Pretty sexy actually.”

“Is that right? Another plant girl.”

“Not
another
plant girl, just one, and then she has this amazing way of humming when she kisses—it’s almost like a purr.”

He grinned as she frowned and shook her head. The ponytail bounced across her shoulders. “I do not.”

“Oh, yes you do. It makes me wonder what you do when you—”

She landed a quick jab to his rib.

“Ouch.” He rubbed where her elbow landed.

“Keep wondering, buddy, ’cause that’s not on the radar at the moment.”

He hitched a brow. “It’s not? Not even a remote possibility?”

Abby scraped her teeth across the pink lipstick, which he knew tasted of candy, and his body went rigid. The announcer overhead boomed out, “Okay, folks, it’s time for the seventh inning stretch. Everyone stand up—and streeettttcccchhh.”

They stood together. She lifted her hands above her head and thrust her chest out, and damned if his eyes didn’t try to roll back in his head. He grabbed her hand and groaned. “Let’s get out of here.” Carter pulled her toward the steps.

“Huh? Now? Where to? You have an emergency?”

“Yeah, an emergency need to find out exactly where that purring and stretching leads. Are you with me or not?” It was her fault, really. She’d leaned into him all night, brushing the warmth of her arm against his. She spoke in that soft way she always did and he loved it. He glanced at the scoreboard. Yeah, he loved the Astros, but they could manage without him this time. “I can take you home—or
home.
Your choice.”

She stepped against him, her hand in his, her chest against his back. He looked over his shoulder and registered the glint in her smile.

“Well, I always did think the seventh inning stretch was a critical part of the game. A game changer, sort of.”

“It could be.”

The drive to his place usually took about thirty minutes, depending on traffic. When she slipped her fingers inside the buttons of his shirt on the way, he jammed his foot on the gas and they managed it in twenty. Thank God there weren’t any cops along the way. He would have landed a ticket for sure. He rushed to the door as soon as the car was in park, not willing to give her time to back out.

It was pathetic and pushy. He couldn’t help it—she’d been on his mind for weeks. Invading his work, his sleep, everything. It had to stop, and tonight it was going to. He’d get her out of his thoughts for good.

As he opened the door, Abby slid her fingers around his waist from behind and dug those fingernails into his stomach. He clenched his eyes. Okay, maybe she wouldn’t be completely out of his thoughts, but he’d work on that later. After he investigated that awesome purring thing. He whirled her around, slammed the door behind them, and plunged his mouth to hers.

• • •

Abby was about as close to losing her mind as she’d been in … forever. When she’d wrapped around him from behind, he groaned. There was a mountain of heat between them just as it had been in his office, but
this
time she needed confirmation. She strung her fingers in his hair and pulled back softly. When his mouth moved down her neck and he pushed the neck of her T-shirt aside, she pulled harder. “Wait.”

“Huh, what’s wrong?” The grogginess in his voice wasn’t sleep but restraint. Thick and waning restraint.

“I need to know something.”

His gaze mirrored the same passion burning in her.

“Sure. Tell me.” He stepped back, his arms wrapped loosely around her waist. “If you’re worried about protection, I have it.” He nodded toward a hallway that most certainly led to a room she wanted and feared at the same time.

“No, not that. I mean, um, that’s good. I just need to know that whatever happens between us stays that way. Okay?”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want our—whatever this is—fodder for man talk.” Short of telling him she’d read all those texts about her, she couldn’t exactly detail it out. Still, she wasn’t interested in any other gossip about … body parts or performance.

“You think I’d do that? Christ, Abs, has that happened to you? Someone talked about you that way?”

“No.”
Just you, that’s all.
She panted as his hands took a soft turn north toward the skin under her breasts. “But—”

“Trust me, I’m not like that.” He delved his mouth against hers, his tongue wet and searching for a response, and she forgot everything.

What exactly had she wanted him to say?

He released her lips and trailed kisses across her cheek and down her neck, over her collarbone, clamping down on the soft pebble of her breast. She yelped and clung to him so tight his heart beat rapidly and his breath rasped as he licked her flesh. She kissed his cheek. His ear. Anything she could get her mouth against while she held him.

Abby blinked away the fog when Carter lifted his head. Her shirt had somehow ended up on the floor. His too. While his hands fumbled with the clasp on her bra, she stroked his chest and moved to the zipper on his pants. The cold rasp of metal sent her blood skyrocketing, but before she could reach in and grasp the spot she wanted to touch, he grabbed her wrist.

“I’m sorry.” She tried to control her breathing. “Too forward, right? We should stop.”

“No. No, it’s not that—we just need to—relocate. Come on.” He entwined his fingers in hers and pulled her behind him to a dark room with even darker furniture. Everything about it was incredibly male: the sheets, the furniture, even the smell. It was all
him
. Which heated up things even more. He grabbed something from the floor and tossed it aside before she stepped forward. “It’s a little messy, sorry.”

She giggled, more from nerves than anything else. “Well, at least I know you weren’t planning this.”

Carter’s over-stimulated nerves finally got a message through to his brain and jogged him awake. Silver shards of moonlight filtered through the blinds and cast a striping of color across his bed. And the body sprawled over him like a blanket.

He brought a hand up and stroked the tickling hair away from his nose and smiled as he soaked her in. Now that was a picture he wouldn’t easily forget. Nor the time they spent together before he did the unthinkable—fell asleep, sated and exhausted.

Her fault, but he wasn’t placing blame. More like awarding it, he supposed. The flight home, late night at the ballpark, beer, and the warmest skin
ever
wrapped around him. Not exactly a bad way to wear a man out.

Badeep deep.

The glow of Abby’s cell shot through the room. Who sent her text messages at six a.m.? His cell buzzed and danced on the counter as well. Okay, who was he to judge? He ignored the message and trailed his hand down her back, letting it rest in the small spot at the base of her spine.

“You awake?”

In response to his question, she slid her leg up his thigh and rested it across parts of him that drew to attention.
Wow.
The rest was over. Would she be interested in another seventh inning stretch? The first one had been a blast.

“Yeah, now.” She pushed up on an arm and shoved the hair from her eyes.

Her skin was pearlescent in the light, goading him to touch. Which he did. He reached up and cupped a hand over the swell of her breast and trailed a thumb across it. He liked that she watched.

“I should go.”

“Now?” It was hard to pass up a chance to make her do that humming thing again. Besides, they had another hour or so before work.

Badeep deep
.

“Yeah, someone’s trying to find me.” The glow from her phone lit the room again.

“Here, I’ll get it. You can answer and then we’ll—” He slipped her leg away and pulled up, dropping his legs to the floor.

“No!” Abby bolted toward the glow, snatched it up, and hit a button, plunging them back to moonlit darkness.

“Wow, you move fast for this early. Too fast for me. I’m not awake. Come here.” He motioned her to join him, but she reached for the pile of undergarments at her feet.

“Can’t. I need to go take a shower and get ready for work. I, um, take a while.” She yanked on her bra and panties then went in search of her other clothing. When she returned, she twisted her hair back into the ponytail he’d slipped it out of the night before. Another message lit up her phone and he wondered if that meant something.

Or perhaps
someone.
A pit opened in his stomach.
No fucking way. Not again.

She had someone looking for her. And she didn’t want him to see who.

• • •

The following week, Carter walked into the office proud of the fact he hadn’t picked up the phone and called her any of the fifteen times he’d considered it. Should he have at least checked to make sure she got home okay? Yeah, right. Home to whoever was trying to find her? Most guys would probably love to be a girl’s wild side. The fling. The one-night stand. Why did he have a problem? He shrugged as rain pelted his office window. He didn’t. But he
did
have a problem with lying.

He was relieved he had a flight out on Thursday afternoon and the rain would clear by then. He’d be in Thailand by nine
a.m.
the following day—which was actually the same day due to the time change. A little distance and reflection would do him well. And a hell of a lot of work.

As if he didn’t have enough problems, Carter’s thoughts wandered to his mom. His latest attempt to convince her to sell the house and move in with him hit a brick wall. “An old woman like me doesn’t need to cramp the style of her young and single offspring.” It had been a relief, though he argued just enough to seem sincere. She’d hate the city anyway. Their meager home in the hill country wasn’t much, but it didn’t require a long drive anywhere and there was ample grass and freedom. Plus, she had a plethora of neighbors to meddle with and check on her.

If her health was good, that would have been enough. It wasn’t and he chastised himself for not visiting her before he boarded the plane. He was all she had left and guilt plagued him for not visiting more than a couple times a month. It had been a week and half with the past trip and now that would stretch to three weeks by the time he returned.

Not good.

He made a mental note to ask one of the guys to go by and check on her while he was gone. Roger or Jackson would probably be okay with doing so. They’d known her for a few years and she loved them like family.

When the airplane taxied to a stop, the thought disappeared. His customers waited on the tarmac and whisked him to their office, thrusting him into business meetings and planning discussions until well after dark.

He nodded off on his way to the hotel when the jet lag finally caught up. The driver woke him long enough for Carter to get to his room, and he was in a deep slumber within minutes of entering.

• • •

“You didn’t explain anything, you just ran like hell?” Caroline’s raised brow exuded her disapproval. The garden-gloved hand on her hip punctuated it. “And now you’re wondering why he hasn’t called? Seriously, Abby, what did you expect? Even if he wanted to see you again, taking off like that certainly makes it look as if you didn’t.”

“What was I supposed to do? I had to get a shower before I came to work.” Maybe it wasn’t exactly the full story, but there was truth in the words.

Caroline didn’t buy it. She shook her head and ratcheted her brow higher. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”

“Besides, it’s been almost a week. He could have called any time he wanted. I’m always here.” Abby grabbed a bag of top soil and started filling peat pots for seedlings. “He could have stopped by too.”

“Yeah, if he wasn’t on the other side of the world.”

“What are you talking about?”

Caroline ran a box knife through the seal of the delivery that arrived the day before. She pulled the flaps open so she could reach in and unload the contents. “He’s in Thailand again, according to Rog. Left Thursday.”

Abby spun around with a clump of soil in her palm. “Rog? You mean Carter’s friend Roger? You’re calling him by a nickname now? I thought you despised the guy.”

Caroline shrugged. “It’s kind of hard to avoid talking to him while I’m doing the plant maintenance. I mean, he’s right there. So am I. I try to ignore him as much as possible, but he won’t take a clue. Besides, after you took off like a whirlwind and left his buddy tied up in the sheets—”

“I didn’t tie him—”

Caroline held up a hand. “Oh, please—metaphorically speaking, of course. I know you’re too straight-laced to tie someone to the bedposts. Assuming he had bedposts. Did he?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Rog said he was going to be gone for at least a week, very likely two. They have some big project going on over there and apparently Carter’s commuting on a quarterly basis. He was hoping he’d get to go too, at some point.”

“He told you that? Wow, you two are getting pretty cozy.”

“Hardly. He’s a toad.”

“A toad. What the heck does that mean? You know what they say about frogs and toads.”