liked the performance.”
“Yeah. It was nice.”
Nice. Oh, good one. I’m again blowing my chance to tell her how wonderful she was, but I don’t have the words to describe it. Three hours from now, I will, I’m sure, when I’m lying alone in my bed, aching, unable to think about anything but her.
On impulse, I move abruptly toward Erin, turn her to me, and kiss her parted lips.
One touch, her lips smooth, her breath warming mine. My body goes molten, melting like silicon into glass.
I pull back. Shit. I just kissed her. I wait for her to smack me or snarl at me, or worse, threaten to tell my mom.
Erin watches me a moment, her eyes glistening in the dashboard light. I start to turn away, give her the chance to get out and run, when she grabs me by the shirt, hauls me across the center column, and kisses the hell out of me.
Chapter Three
Erin
I expect Ben to tear himself away and shove me out of the truck, but he pulls me closer, gentling the hard kiss I’d hammered him with.
Fire washes me as he caresses my mouth, his tongue sliding inside. My fingers sink into his shirt, finding hard muscle beneath.
His lips are strong, the burn of unshaved whiskers on my skin. Ben cups my head, holding me steady. I’m shaking all over and feel safe at the same time.
I want to kiss him forever, but it’s not practical, so we ease apart. He hovers near me, his gaze on my lips, his fingers brushing my cheek.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since I met you,” he says in a quiet voice.
I swallow. “Yeah? The nerdy girl with glasses?”
“The beautiful woman with amazing eyes. I’m the nerd in this equation.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” I say shakily.
“That’s right. My opinion.”
I make a noise that sounds like a giggle. Seriously, I haven’t giggled since I was a little kid. But then, I’ve never met a guy who makes me feel like Ben does—silly, young, excited …
“Want to come in?” I say it casually. No pressure. This doesn’t have to lead to sex. We can just talk. Right?
Ben hesitates. Any second, he’ll say, I really should be going, and I’ll nod, understanding. No pressure, remember?
“Sure,” he says.
Ben kills the engine and opens his door. I sit there like a fool until he’s halfway around the truck. I realize he means it—he’s going to accompany me inside.
I open the door and leap out. As he had at the restaurant, he looks a bit let down, and I realize he wanted to do the gentlemanly thing of opening my door. He really is sweet.
Ben locks up his truck, and I fumble for my keys to the front door. I find them, drop them, and dive for the ground, groping in the dark. Of course they’ve landed in the gravel beyond the doorstep, outside the circle of the porch light.
Ben crouches down, helping me look. Our hands touch, and I let out that stupid giggly sound again. Please, make me stop.
“Careful,” I tell Ben. “There’s a cactus …”
He yelps as the words come out of my mouth. I have desert landscaping in my small yard—saves water and it’s easy to take care of, as I’m rarely home.
Ben jerks his arm up. My keys dangle from his hand, and so do spines from the prickly pear he’s shoved them into. He shakes his hand, keys jangling, but I know from experience the spines won’t be dislodged so easily.
I grab the keys and open the door, waving him inside. I slam the door closed and drop my keys onto a table, hitting the light switch before Ben can fall over the furniture in my tiny house.
I take him by the arm and pull him down the hall past my bedroom to the bathroom. “Sorry,” I say.
“I’m the idiot who stuck his hand in a cactus,” Ben rumbles.
I have the water running in the sink, the antiseptic out of the medicine cabinet, and duct tape from the cabinet on the wall. When I redid the bathroom two years ago, I went with a retro feel, installing a sink with legs, a clawfoot tub, and black and white tile on the floor.
To Ben, whose family renovates lavish homes in the town of Paradise Valley—the swank stretch that runs from Camelback Mountain north to Shea—it probably looks dorky, but I did it myself with finds from big box stores and the Park and Swap. I had a plumbing