leaned against the door, arms in front of his chest, one booted foot over the next. “We need to talk.”
3
CALEB COULD SEE the firestorm coming. Shay’s eyes darkened and pink rushed across the delicate ivory of her skin—both sure signs she was in fighting mode. He had a knack for bringing it out in her. Had intentionally drawn her right to this hot little spot of temper as he had so many times in the past. As a defense, a distraction. Anything to fight the forbidden, sizzling-hot attraction that had always existed between them.
“Talk,” Shay repeated, starting to walk toward him. “I’ve not heard a word from you in the two months you’ve been home, and now you want to talk. Because you’re ready. All the times I was ready, you tucked tail and ran.”
“I’m not running now, Shay,” he said, not denying the truth. He had run. Run and hoped they’d outgrown the adolescent infatuation they’d shared. But it had matured as they had, turned dangerous in its demand. “I’m here. I’m ready. Let’s talk.” It was long overdue and he knew it.
“Well, I’m not ready.” She stopped in front of him, impatiently waving him aside. “You might as well move away from in front of the door, Caleb. The only person I’m going to talk to right now is Rick. You scared the man half to death with that ‘lethal soldier’ act of yours. That was rude and it was wrong.”
“Rude was visiting the daughter of the party’s host in her bedroom,” he said. “Rick deserves to be scared.”
“You’re in my room,” she pointed out. “What does that say about you?”
“I belong here. Rick doesn’t.”
“I decide who belongs in my room,” she said and held up a finger to stop his objections. “It’s still my room, whether I live here or not. And unlike you, Rick was invited.” She slapped the shirt in her hand against Caleb’s chest, and he reached up and caught it as she added, “He needed a shirt. Too bad I didn’t spill my plate on you instead of him.”
He started to toss the shirt, and his gaze caught on the University of Texas championship logo. “Wait one damn minute.” His eyes jerked to hers. “This is my shirt,” he said, then added, incredulously, “You were giving him my shirt.”
“My shirt,” she declared, hands on her scantily clad hips.
“That you stole from me the year I moved into this house to sleep in and never gave back. You know damn well you were giving him that shirt to piss me off.”
She snatched the shirt right back from him and tossed it over her shoulder. “It was convenient. Like you shoving Rick in my direction because you couldn’t handle being in close quarters with me.”
“I’d say I’m pretty damn close right now.” Close enough to see the sprinkle of light brown freckles on her nose that she hated and he loved. Close enough to touch her. “And I had nothing to do with Rick, besides kicking him out of here. The date thing came from Kent and your father.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Rick sure didn’t see it that way.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t there when Rick was pining over you,” he agreed. “But you know damn well I couldn’t say anything without drawing questions.”
“Right,” she said smartly. “We wouldn’t want to draw any questions. Better everyone think we’ve decided we don’t like each other than dare believe we want to jump each other’s bones.”
“Touchy, touchy,” he chided. “See. I knew you were pissed at me. Exactly why I wasn’t going to risk you using Rick to get back at me.”
“You sure are full of yourself, Caleb Martin,” she roared back. “It takes a lot of arrogance to assume I only wanted Rick to get back at you.”
“You did just say you wanted to jump my bones,” he pointed out, teasing her despite himself. It was second nature, a part of what he’d always done to her, with her. It was also going to get him in deeper water, but then, with Shay, he was damn near always drowning anyway. “I said we, not I, and I was only making a point and you know it.”
“Anger works like alcohol on you,” he said. “It makes you say what you really feel. And anger, directed at me, makes you do things you normally wouldn’t do. Not only were you giving Rick my shirt, you were alone with him in a bedroom at your conservative parents’ house. That’s not you and you know it.”
Her eyes flashed. “How would you know what is or isn’t me, Caleb?” She poked his chest, her body barely a hairbreadth from his. “The few times you came into town over the past ten years, we both hoped we’d have outgrown the past. When we hadn’t, instead of dealing with it and talking to me, you avoided me like the plague. Like that somehow made it all go away, but really it was just you that went away. Well, it’s not going to work now that you’re home, Caleb. Kent, Mom and Dad are going to start asking questions about the tension between us.”
Her eyes pierced his, her glare packed with challenge. “And you know what else isn’t working? You pretending that dumb ten-year-old kiss didn’t happen, and then looking at me like you want to kiss me again. It’s ticking me off.” She poked his chest again. “Bad.”
He wanted to drag her into his arms, every nerve ending in his body aware of her, aware of how long they’d wanted each other, how long they’d denied that need. “I’m not trying to piss you off, Shay.”
“Too late,” she declared, a tiny lift to her pointed chin, which indicated confrontation, but her hand uncurled beneath his hold and flattened against his. Her voice softened. “Sometimes I just think…maybe…we’re like the apple to Adam and Eve. It was just an apple, but the forbidden aspect made it tantalizing. Maybe if we kiss again, we’ll find that the first kiss has been blown into something bigger and better than it really was. Maybe then we can just move on.”
Whoa. She thought that kiss—the one that had kept him fantasizing for ten flipping years—wasn’t as good as they remembered? He must be insane, because the idea wasn’t half-bad. He wanted the kiss to be nothing. He wanted the torment of wanting the forbidden fruit to be gone. Then again, a part of him didn’t want it gone. It simply wanted her without recourse. Which was impossible.
“It won’t work,” he said, slipping away from her as if burned. Shay was leaning slightly in his direction, and the action caught her off guard. She swayed into him, her slender body melting against his. She gasped and caught herself with her hands, no doubt a result of her hips pressed against his. He was hard, thick and pulsing with ache. He had been from the moment he’d drawn that first breath of her scent.
His hands went to her shoulders, and Caleb’s eyes locked with hers. She wet her lips—nervously, not seductively—but the impact was no less alluring. No less tempting. Suddenly, the kiss held new appeal.
Caleb slid his hands over her shoulders toward her neck, and she shivered beneath his touch. It was the first time he’d ever allowed himself to touch her like a man touches a woman.
“Shay,” he said softly, lacing his fingers into the wild mane of blond, pool-tangled locks that framed her heart-shaped face.
She lifted on her toes, closing the distance between her petite five foot two inches and his six-foot frame, bringing their lips close, a breath apart. He could
