the side in an invitation to continue. All I want is to take her sweet mouth, but I take my time, kissing and sucking my way over her jaw until my lips hover a hair’s breadth from hers. I scan her face for signs that I’m crossing lines she doesn’t want crossed. “Tiger.”
She presses into me with her face uplifted to mine. “Cash.”
The steam rising from the bubbling water, the stars above, and her soft and willing in my arms is the perfect setting for a kiss that’s long overdue. I take another moment to relish the experience. To breathe in her sweet breath and savor the anticipation just a bit longer. Then I move to close the precious millimeters between us. But before our mouths touch, her cell phone sitting on the patio table rings.
She jerks away from me like we just got caught making out in study hall. “That’s Donny’s ring. I need to get it.”
“Yeah, okay.” The warm space she’s occupied is cold the instant she moves and climbs out of the hot tub. I hang my head and try to regulate the air going in and out of my lungs.
“Donny? Is everything alright?” She grabs her towel and holds it in front of her, and I want to weep when she covers the body that I had plans to explore and memorize.
During the pause when Donny must be talking, she slides her gaze to me then squeezes her eyes shut like if she wills it hard enough, I’ll disappear.
Not on your life, sweetheart.
“Yes, I have them. No, I don’t know them off the top of my head. I need to grab the paperwork and get the numbers.”
Another pause, and she still won’t look at me.
“No, no, I wasn’t doing anything important, but I am outside, so give me a minute and I’ll call you right back with the information.”
Now I’ve been relegated to “not important” status. Nice.
“Okay, talk in a few.” She disconnects the call and slips her feet into a pair of white flip-flops. “I have to go get some info for Donny,” she says to the ground, because she still won’t meet my eyes.
“Tiger.”
One last look at her pink toenails, then she straightens her shoulders and turns the full wattage of her smile on me. I’ve noticed over the past week that she uses that thing like a weapon. It’s her first line of defense to throw people off their game. Good thing I have experience playing a hard-hitting sport.
“Well, I better go,” she says. “I’m glad we settled things between us and cleared up any misunderstandings. I’d like for us to be friends, Cash.” She gives me a quick wave, then turns to leave.
My eyes follow her progress until she disappears behind her front door. I hate to tell the homecoming queen, but there’s a lot left to settle between us. And I’ve never wanted to do to my friends the things I want to do to her. Besides, I have plenty of friends.
But there’s only one Tiger Lyons.
Thirty-Two
Tiger
“Hold your side level,” James barks at me from the other end of the cabinet we’re installing.
“Sorry.” I don’t usually help with the construction, but this morning I needed the distraction and to not be readily accessible to Cash. I’m not sure what I was thinking last night. Not true. I know exactly what I was thinking. That I’ve wanted this man my entire adult life. So why did I run?
Nerves.
Uncertainty.
Fear.
Pick one. I’m a thirty-year-old woman who’s only ever been with one man. Cash King has had his pick of women his whole life. And what if I kiss him, and I don’t want to stop kissing him? He’s made it clear that he doesn’t intend to hang around Ryder. And there’s also the issue of football, and his love of notoriety.
“Tiger, I can get one of the others to help me if you have something else to do.”
I don’t miss the hopeful tone in James’s voice. He knows my head’s not in this today. “That would probably be for the best. Sorry.” We lower the cabinet and set it on the floor.
The lines on my friend’s forehead crinkle as he examines me, probably noting the dark circles I must have under my eyes. “Didn’t get much sleep last night?”
“Not really.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
I cut my gaze to him. “Not really.”
“Ah. I get it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He slips his work gloves off and puts them in his back pocket. “It means that the owner