Her expression closed up. “That’s what I thought. Which is why the answer is no. We’ve talked about this, Wes. One kiss isn’t going to change the way I operate. ”
“It wasn’t one,” was the first idiotic thing to come out of his mouth. “And it does change us. ” His brain clicked back on and darted to her earlier words. “Wait. Would you see me tonight if I’d said that’s all I wanted? Sex?”
“Probably not. ” She looked out the windshield and combed both hands through her hair, taming the wild strands. “But I would have had to think about it longer. ”
Wes stared at her like an idiot. What the hell did he say to that?
“We should get to the restaurant. ” She pulled her purse back into her lap.
“We’re not getting anywhere. ” Judging by the way Rubi’s shoulders crawled toward her ears, he needed to soften his voice. “What. The. Fuck?”
She turned toward him, her gaze direct. “There’s a lot of good between us. A lot. And your friendship means everything to me. More than you can understand. I don’t want to screw that up. ”
Friendship.
The deathblow.
“I hear you, Rubi. But I’m not listening. ” He kept his voice level and low. He wanted his determination to reach her. “Because I know it’s not true. ”
She opened her mouth to argue. Wes pressed his index finger against the supple swell of her lips and kept his eyes there. “And I know you want more than friendship with me. I see it every time you look at me. And I sure as hell felt it in that kiss. ”
She pulled her head back with an expression that Wes knew usually preceded a battle. Before she started an argument, he sat back and turned the engine over. “But, I’m giving you a break since”—he cast her a sidelong grin—“I did just kiss you stupid. ”
“Wes Lawson, you piece of—”
He gave her a talk-to-the-hand gesture and glanced in his side mirror before pulling back out onto the road. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret, precious. ”
Four
The way Wes pushed her Aston to its limits on the second half of their drive helped her bank her frustration, but guilt and confusion continued to gnaw at her belly. By the time they’d reached the restaurant, a familiar dark hollowness had settled in. The emptiness was intensified by the fun, the high, the connection they’d shared on the first half of the trip…and then lost.
Which symbolized her greatest fear—acting on their attraction and losing what they had.
She should have just kept her mouth shut and played the whole thing off as nothing. But that toe-curling kiss had really screwed with her mind. She’d kissed more than her share of men, but Wes’s kiss… Wes’s kiss had been real. Filled with real emotion. Real passion. Wes’s kiss had touched Rubi deep in her body—in a place that had nothing to do with sex.
And that scared the shit out of her. Because she was fucking defective.
Wes pulled to a stop along the curb in front of the Crossroads restaurant. He clicked his seat belt free, gripped the top of the windshield, and used the frame
to pull himself up. Rubi would have to be dead not to notice the roll of all that muscle in his arms and shoulders. Or the way his T-shirt rode up and showed a few inches of that washboard belly.
He twisted toward the patio, where Jax and Lexi sat at a table, holding hands and Rachel turned her glass of water in circles.
“Chamberlin,” Wes called, his demeanor jovial and light, as if nothing had happened between the set and the restaurant. “You’ve gotta drive this thing. ”
He hopped over the side of the car and strode around to open the passenger’s door. Maybe she was making too much out of this. After all, it was just a kiss. But then he curved his arm low around her waist and guided her into the restaurant, and she knew their unspoken hands-off policy between friends had been broken for good.
At the table, Wes released her only to pull out her chair. His chivalry was nothing new; he was always a gentleman, to both friends and strangers alike. But there was a new air of determined ownership about him that both excited and unnerved her.
Rubi met Lexi’s and Rachel’s suspicious gazes as Wes tucked her next to the table before sitting beside her. As if the two women had planned it ahead of time, they both cast curious glances at Wes, then back to Rubi, brows raised. Rubi returned a don’t-start glare to each before picking up a menu and staring at it without reading.
She worried the inside of her lip, her mind bouncing all over the freaking place. She suddenly felt as helpless to control Wes’s feelings as she did his driving.
Rubi scanned the table and the half-filled patio beyond. Half-finished iced teas sat in front of Lexi and Jax where she leaned into his body, looking blissfully content in the circle of his arm. Which only made Rubi feel even more freakishly abnormal. She returned her gaze to the menu with a sigh.
In her peripheral vision, Rubi saw the waiter approach. Wes ordered a beer.
She redirected her gaze from the menu to his face. “Are you driving again after lunch? You probably shouldn’t drink. ”