Part 12 (1/2)
”You shouldn't complain. It's nice to have people that care enough to drive you nuts.”
He glanced toward her. She had that longing in her eyes, the same one she got when she saw him and his brothers bantering. ”Do you come from a big family?” She shook her head. ”Any siblings?”
”No, it's just me and my mother.”
Suddenly a voice with an annoyingly exaggerated Californian accent rumbled in the cabin.
”Hey, yo, you've got a call, dude.”
He looked to her. ”Not to alarm you, but your purse is talking to you.”
”That's my surfer dude,” she said, reaching for her cell. She checked caller ID and, with a frown, disconnected the call.
”Your what?”
”My surfer dude ringtone. Some friends from LA sent it to me so I wouldn't get homesick. Cool, don't you think?”
Hardly. ”It's annoying,” he muttered.
She stifled a laugh. ”We Californians are annoying. You have to hear him on my GPS giving directions. He's a blast.” He somehow doubted it. ”He's actually one of the standard voice options in most GPS devices.”
”He is? How do you know?”
”Because I tried all those voice options, of course. Haven't you?”
She looked at him expectantly, as if scrolling through all the language and voice options in the GPS was a total must. ”Frankly? It didn't occur to me. I stuck with the first one.”
She rolled her eyes. ”There's one in Klingon. I used to have it on when I drove my geekier friends to the yearly Star Trek conventions in Vegas. They'd translate for me.”
He wasn't sure which part of her statement was more disturbing to him: the friends that spoke Klingon, or the yearly visits to Star Trek conventions. Or that she had geekier friends. Finally he opted for one. ”You have friends that speak Klingon?”
She shook her head. ”No. Not fluently, no. It helped a lot that from LA to Vegas is for the most part a straight line. You really don't want to get lost in the Mojave Desert with a handful of bickering Klingons and Vulcans who can achieve global domination with a laptop but can't figure out how to change a tire on the car.”
Nuts. ”You computer people are a bunch of weirdos.”
He took a peek at her. She was blowing at her bangs to get them out of her eyes, not bothering to answer. Christy was turning out to be such a kick-a.s.s surprise. There was so much more to her than an extremely f.u.c.kable body. He couldn't recall the last time he'd truly enjoyed a woman's company without his c.o.c.k being actively engaged. Not that his c.o.c.k didn't want to, he pondered as he s.h.i.+fted in his seat, trying to give more s.p.a.ce to his groin.
They arrived in Alden, and as he parked in front of the Red Chicken, she looked to the flas.h.i.+ng sign at the door and laughed. ”Salsa night?”
”Every Tuesday during the summer months.” He unbuckled and turned to her. She seemed nicely surprised, but after the dinner fiasco he had to ask, ”Do we have anything against salsa?”
She laughed again. ”Nope, nothing against salsa.”
”Thank G.o.d.”
”Why? What made you think I would?”
”You listen to gangsta rap in your downtime, babe, that's why.”
”Ah, but that's for relaxing. Salsa is for dancing.”
”Gangsta rap is for relaxing?” he asked to a.s.sure himself he'd heard properly.
She nodded, giving him that d.a.m.n innocent smile that never failed to get him hard.
”You like salsa, though?” she asked, looking incredulously at him.
”Sure I do. I get to grope and show off a beautiful woman while I choose the steps and direct the dance. What more would a controlling b.a.s.t.a.r.d like me want?”
She rolled her eyes. ”Oh, of course. How silly of me.”
Not that he'd been to many salsa nights. Much less for dancing. Mainly because they took place in Alden, and he didn't need that kind of grief.
On the way to the entrance, that d.a.m.n stoned surfer dude started talking again. ”Yo, man, answer the call. It's rude to keep people waiting, dude.”
She looked at the caller ID again and, with a grunt, disconnected it.
He frowned. ”If you want to answer-”
Christy shook her head. ”I don't. It's my mom, and you know how moms are.”
”No, I don't. I don't have the slightest clue what a mother is-a good one, I mean,” he blurted before he could stop himself.
After all, a good mother wouldn't walk out on three children, one of them barely months old. Coming face-to-face with her when he was twenty and having to have his father bail him out of jail had cured him of any illusions he might have harbored about the woman.
He studied Christy. He'd never mentioned his mother, or lack thereof, to any of his dates. He'd done it once, a slip of his tongue really, and the woman had gotten that pity look on her face. Wanting to mother him. Please. But Christy wasn't giving him the look. As a matter of fact, she snorted.
”Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to call my mom that, believe me. I don't think 'decent' would even cut it.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. ”What's wrong with your mother?”
She laughed. ”Plenty, I tell you. If you want to get to dance salsa anytime this century, then we better drop the subject.”
Christy didn't seem to mind talking about her mother, but he didn't insist. He was curious, but he wanted to have her in his arms more. ”Let's go dance salsa.”
”Good choice. Talking about my mother would give us indigestion. Salsa is better. Although I'm a bit rusty, and I wasn't very good to begin with,” she said as they went in.
”Don't worry, I'm good. Just follow my lead.”
After a couple of hours of sheer torture, having her in his arms yet unable to touch her as he really wanted, and tired of half the men in the place hitting on her, he took her aside, kissed her long and hard, and then pressed his forehead against hers. ”Let's go, babe. Now, before I end up f.u.c.king you right here.”
She nodded, her breath choppy, her eyes glazed. Thank G.o.d she got as worked up by him as he did by her; it would certainly suck to be alone in this.
She seemed to feel how volatile that energy between them was, because she kept quiet while they drove home.
He chanced a glance at her and right away regretted it. She was so d.a.m.n s.e.xy sitting there, nervously licking and nibbling at her swollen lips.
”Stop, sweet thing. Have some mercy here.”
”What?” She sounded clueless.