By the time the car had been packed up later that afternoon, she was congratulating herself on her decision to come. They sat side by side on the tailgate of his truck. Jason balanced an icepack on his injured knee. Despite the heat, she was leaning against his side, enjoying the lean strength of his body.
“What prompted you to come to the track today?” he questioned, gaze fixed on the Stover brothers as they argued over how long it would take them to get the car ready to race once more.
The anxiety that had gripped her before his crash reappeared and she shrugged to ease her sudden tension. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you race.” She eyed the busted-up Mustang. “And now it’s going to be even longer.”
“So it seems.”
“Sorry your season ended like this. Are you heading back tonight?”
“Gus and Kris are. I’ve got a hotel room in town. I think I’ll ice my knee and drive back tomorrow.”
She waited a beat, hoping he’d ask her to stay, but no invitation was forthcoming. “Want company?”
“In the shape I’m in, I’d be no use to you.” He shot her a wry smile.
As his friend, she shouldn’t feel rejected, but after accepting that she was in love with him and being treated like his girlfriend all day, she’d expected he’d want her to stick around. She recognized that he was in obvious pain and needed a restful night’s sleep. A friend would put his welfare above her own desires.
“Then I guess I’ll head back to Houston.” She kissed him on the cheek and hopped off the tailgate.
He caught her wrist as her feet hit the ground. “I’m really glad you came today.”
It wasn’t fair the way he turned the sex appeal on and off whenever it suited him. Ming braced herself against the lure of his sincere eyes and enticing smile. Had she fallen in love with his charm? If so, could she go back to being just his friend once they stopped sleeping together?
She hoped so. Otherwise she’d spend the rest of her life in love with a man who would never let himself love her back.
“Supporting each other is what friends are for,” she said, stepping between his thighs and taking his face in her hands.
Slowly she brought her lips to his, releasing all her pent-up emotions into the kiss. Her longing for what she could never have. Her fear over his brush with serious injury. And pure, sizzling desire.
After the briefest of hesitations, he matched her passion, fingers digging into her back as he fed off her mouth. The kiss exhilarated her. Everything about being with Jason made her happy. Smiling, she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and rubbed her breasts against his chest. As soon as she heard his soft groan, she released him.
Stepping back, Ming surveyed her handiwork. From the dazed look in his eyes, the flush darkening his cheekbones and the unsteady rush of breath in and out of his lungs, the kiss had packed a wallop. A quick glance below his belt assured her he would spend a significant portion of the evening thinking about her. Good.
“Careful on the drive home tomorrow,” she murmured, wiping her fingertip across her damp lips in deliberate seduction. “Call me when you get back.”
And with a saucy wave, she headed for her car.
*
The sixty-eight-foot cruiser Jason had borrowed for Max’s bachelor party barely rocked as it encountered the wake of the large powerboat that had sped across their bow seconds earlier. Cigar in one hand, thirty-year-old Scotch in the other, Jason tracked the boat skimming the dark waters of Galveston Bay from upstairs in the open-air lounge. On the opposite rail, Max’s brothers were discussing their wives and upcoming fatherhood.
“She’s due tomorrow,” Nathan Case muttered, tapping his cell phone on his knee. “I told her it was crazy for me come to this bachelor party, but she was determined to go out dancing with Missy, Rachel and her friends.”
Nathan’s aggrieved tone found a sympathetic audience in Jason. Why were women so calm about the whole pregnancy-and-giving-birth thing? Ming wasn’t even pregnant, and Jason was already experiencing a little coil of tension deep in his gut. He hadn’t considered how connected he’d feel to her when he’d agreed to father her baby. Nor could he stop wondering if he’d feel as invested if they’d done it her way and he’d never made love to her.
“I’m sure Emma knows what she’s doing,” Sebastian Case said. Older than Max and Nathan by a few years, Sebastian was every inch the confident CEO of a multimillion-dollar corporation.
“I think she’s hoping the dancing will get her contractions started.” Nathan stared at the cell phone as if he could make it ring by sheer willpower. “What if her water breaks on the dance floor?”
“Then she’ll call and you can meet her at the hospital.” Sebastian’s soothing tones were having little effect on his agitated half brother.
“You’re barely into your second trimester,” Nathan scoffed. “Let’s see how rational you are when Missy hasn’t been able to see her feet for a month, doesn’t sleep more than a few hours a night and can’t go ten minutes without finding a bathroom.”
Sebastian’s eyes grew distant for a few seconds as if he was imagining his wife in the final weeks before she was due.
“Do you know what you’re having?” Even as Jason asked Nathan the question, he realized that a month ago he never would have thought to inquire.
“A boy.”
Jason lifted his Scotch in a salute. “Congratulations.”
“You’re single, aren’t you?” Sebastian regarded him like a curiosity. “How come you’re not downstairs with Max and his buddies slipping fives into the ladies’ G-strings instead of hanging out with a couple old family men?”
Because he wasn’t feeling particularly single at the moment.
Jason raised the cigar. “Charlie said no smoking in the salon.”
“But you’re missing the entertainment.” Nathan gestured toward the stairs that led below.
Some entertainment. Max might be downstairs with a half dozen of their single friends and a couple of exotic dancers someone had hired, but Jason doubted his best friend was having any fun. Max wasn’t interested in any woman except Rachel.
Up until two weeks ago Jason hadn’t understood what had come over his friend. Now, after making love with Ming, his craving for her had taken on a life of its own. His body stirred at the memory of her dripping wet in his kitchen. The way her white blouse had clung to her breasts, the fabric rendered sheer by the water. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she’d denied him then. Gotten down on his knees and begged?
Probably.
Jason shoved aside the unsettling thought and smirked at Nathan. “When you’re free to hit a strip club any night of the week, the novelty wears off. You two are the ones who should be downstairs.”
“Why’s that?” Nathan asked.
“I just assumed with your wives being pregnant…”
Sebastian and Nathan exchanged amused looks.
“That our sex lives are nonexistent?” Sebastian proposed. He looked as relaxed and contented as a lion after consuming an antelope.
The last emotion pestering Jason should be envy. He was the free one. Unfettered by emotional ties that had the potential to do damage. Unhampered by monotony, he was free to sleep with a different woman every night of the week if he wanted. He had no demanding female complicating his days.
“Did it surprise either of you that Max is getting married?” Jason asked.
Sebastian swirled the Scotch in his glass. “If I had to wager which one of you two would be getting married first, I would have bet on you.”
“Me?” Jason shook his head in bafflement.
“I thought for sure you and Ming would end up together.”
“We’re close friends, nothing more.”
Sebastian’s thumb traced the rim of his glass. “Yeah, it took me a long time to see what was waiting right under my nose, too.”
Rather than sputter out halfhearted denials, Jason downed the last of his drink and stubbed out the cigar. The Scotch scorched a trail from his throat to his chest.
“I think I’ll go see if Max needs rescuing.”
They’d been cruising around Galveston for a little over an hour and Jason was as itchy to get off the boat as Nathan. He wanted to blame his restlessness on the fact that the bachelor party meant a week from now his relationship with his best buddy would officially go on the back burner as Max took on his new responsibilities as a husband. But Max had been splitting his loyalty for three months now, and Jason was accustomed to being an afterthought.
No, Jason’s edginess was due to the fact that like Nathan, Sebastian and Max, he’d rather be with the woman he was intimate with than whooping it up with a bunch of single guys and a couple of strippers.
What had happened to him?
Only two weeks ago he’d been moaning that Max had abandoned him for a woman. And here he was caught in the same gossamer net, pining for a particular female’s companionship.
He met Max on the narrow stairs that connected the salon level to the upper deck, where Nathan and Sebastian remained.
“Feel like getting off this boat and hooking up with our ladies?” Max proposed. “I just heard from Rachel. They’ve had their fill of the club.”