With the way my body turned to jelly when he just said the words "you owe me a kiss," I guessed I should have been grateful that he ended up kissing me so carefully. So gently.
But holy hell, it was not what I wanted.
It was all I could do not to throw my arms around his neck and slam my tongue against his. Yes, it had been years. Yes, my dry spell was older than my baby, but it was more than just pent up hormones that had me trembling when he pulled back and grinned. It was way more than that.
Head spinning, I tried to pull myself together and walk with a measure of dignity over to his passenger side door. There was no way that he could tell how hard my pulse was throbbing between my legs right? Oh god, was there a damp spot on my skirt?
That terrifying thought sent me scurrying to open my door, but he was already there, blocking my path like an infuriatingly hot wall. "What do you think you're doing?" he drawled.
"Um?" I squeaked, my voice several octaves higher than it should be. "Aren't we going?"
"I open doors for you," he commanded in a voice that made that pulse between my legs throb all the harder. I swear if you hooked my pussy up to a sound system right now the bass would deafen you.
But there was also the small matter of my dignity. "I'm perfectly capable of opening my own door," I protested, reaching to yank the handle.
His hand shot out, closing around my wrist and for a second I stood there, completely boggled by how big he was. At five eight I was not used to feeling tiny, but it was pretty obvious that Jameson could throw me over his shoulder with no difficulty whatsoever.
And I had only met him this morning. He was a complete stranger and I was getting into his car.
This should have scared me but instead I lifted my chin and glared at him. "We got a problem here?"
"What did I say about the door?" he growled.
I licked my lips. "I must not have heard you."
"Should I talk louder?"
I nodded, loving the way he was still holding my wrist, as if he'd forgotten it was there. I sure as hell hadn't. "Yes please," I purred. Wait, I was purring? I never purred. There was not a single instance in my life where purring would be called for. "Talk right into my ear when you do so too, please."
Just as I'd hoped, he bent closer to my ear. When his breath brushed past it, goosebumps marched up my spine and I had to resist the urge to shiver. "I said," he rumbled, his lips brushing my ear lobe. "That I open doors for you. You got that, Charlie?"
This time I did shiver to hear my name on his lips so close to my body. I swallowed and looked up at him sidelong. "I got that," I said, and my voice sounded much more put together than I was feeling.
He nodded and opened the door, stepping aside to let me in, and then shutting it carefully behind me.
For a moment, I was alone in his car. I knew it was a rental. It didn't have had any of those personal touches, yet I still ran my hand over the dashboard as if there was some hidden panel somewhere that would spring open and somehow reveal all of his secrets. I inhaled sharply and my nose was filled with the warm scent of him, something heavy and woodsy, like the forest on a hot summer's day. I closed my eyes and for a second his scent transported me somewhere familiar, but unknown and I wondered where I had caught whiff of it before.
I snapped back to the present when he opened his door. "You're not falling asleep on me, are you?" he chuckled as he slid into the driver's seat and caught me blinking.
I shook my head. "Sleep is for the weak," I declared. And bit back a yawn.
He grinned a little, but was kind enough not to call me out. Instead, he pulled out of my gravel drive and back onto the narrow street. As we left my house behind, I felt a pang that I was leaving my mother alone. One night, I reminded myself. It's only this one night and then everything goes back to the way it was.
Jameson drove like he knew these roads already. I expected to have to direct him, but he floored it up into the hills like he'd been navigating these twisting turns forever. For a second I caught my breath, worried he'd send us careening down into the valley, leaving Malcolm an orphan.
You're having fun, I reminded myself again. Carefree. Just for tonight. And on the next turn I whooped. He glanced at me with a smug grin, and shifted gears before flooring it even harder.
We shot through the dark, so high above the lights in the valley below that I could have been flying above it all in a jet plane. I knew there was a casino up here in the hills. But I knew it the way that I knew that there was a paddle boat tour that took people out onto the lake, that there were jet ski rental companies along the waterfront, and backpacking tours offered along Main Street. They were all things that belonged to the tourists, not the townies. Not the people who actually lived and worked here year-round.
I knew there was a casino up here and I guess I was expecting some kind of glittering Vegas palace. So when we pulled into the parking lot, I almost opened my mouth to ask Jameson if he was lost.
It was a long, timbered building that clung to the side of the hill. Outsized beams gave it the appearance of Adirondack Lodge, done on an oversized scale.
Jameson came over to my side and helped me get out of the car. And even though I definitely didn't need help, I took his arm anyway. And when he closed the door behind me, I didn't let go of it. One night, I reminded myself one last time. Did he notice that I was sliding my hand higher, cupping an appreciative grip on his bicep? Did he like it as much as I did?
As we walked, I craned my head around to see the whole huge stretch of the place. "I've seen pictures of casinos in like Vegas and stuff," I said. "I was expecting water fountains and flashing lights I guess."
He shrugged. "Maybe they were trying to make it fit in with the scenery around here?" he asked.
"This isn't the Adirondacks," I pointed out with a grin. "This is the Finger Lakes."
"Architect probably didn't know that. You know how it is with these city guys." He waved his hand in vague swooping motions. "Upstate New York is all the same place to them."
I laughed. "Aren't you a city guy?"
He chuckled. "Sort of. But I'm one of the smart ones."
"I'll be the judge of that," I said cheekily, and let him lead me into the front door.
Once inside, we stood in the entryway and I stared at the miles and miles of jangling slot machines with my mouth open. As Jameson said something to the front desk people, I watched as people just poured money into the machines. Dollar bill after dollar bill after twenty-dollar bill. I could pay my bills five times over with the amount of money that the people were pissing away.
It made my fists clench.
I turned, ready to tell Jameson that I didn't want to do this after all, but when I looked at him I saw that his eyes were gleaming. "Wanna play?" he asked, taking my arm.
I swallowed. "I didn't, I didn't bring much cash," I lied. I didn't actually bring any at all. Didn't have any at all.
"Here," he said, reaching into his wallet and pulling out a twenty and pressed it into my hand.
I looked at where it lay in my palm like I had never seen money before. "What do I do with it?" I asked.
"You know how to play cards?" he asked.
"Nope." I shook my head. Embarrassment was starting to crawl in heated fingers across my cheeks. This was way out of my league. I had no clue, what was I thinking? This wasn't my world. This wasn't where I belonged. These weren't my people. And Jameson, he was definitely on a different plane from me.
But I refused to be ashamed about it. "No," I said, lifting my chin. "I don't know how to play cards. I'm not a gambler."
I expected him to be irritated, but Jameson just smiled. "Okay, then just stick it in the slot machines then," he said. "It's kind of hard to screw that up."
I turned and walked over to the nearest one. "Just stick it in there?"
His eyes twinkled a little, and the corners of his mouth turned upward. "Yeah," he said with a mischievous grin. "Just stick it in."
Suppressing a laugh at the middle school joke, I slid Jameson's twenty-dollar bill into the slot machine. "Now what?"
He leaned over me. I could feel the way the heat was rising off his skin. He was so close and the millimeter of space that separated us was electrically charged. "Well now, let's see if you get lucky," he said in that same low voice as before.
Dizzy, I jammed my finger uncomprehendingly against some of the buttons and waited to see what happened, but nothing did.
Jameson chuckled. "Only a dollar?" he asked.
I turned to look at him, sent off-kilter all over again by close he was. My cheek almost brushed against his. "But it's your money," I pointed out
He shook his head. "I need to see if you really are my lucky charm," he said. Grabbing my hand, he slid it back over and changed my bet. "Now, press there," he told me.
I rested my fingers on top of the bet button, too worried to take the next step. "I can't," I squeaked. Twenty dollars was a pack of the cheap diapers at Target. Twenty dollars was a tank of gas. Twenty dollars was a lot of money to me and here I was just... playing with it. Like this was all just a game.
Jameson's fingers slipped over mine again. "So we do it together then?" he asked.
I nodded, my powers of speech abandoning me. We pressed down on the button together.
Then I jumped back, startled as the lights above the machine started whirling. Jameson was clapping his hands. "A hundred dollars?" he crowed. "Not bad sweet thing. Not bad at all.
"Holy shit!" I gasped as I watched the numbers climb higher, announcing my win. "We won?"
Exalted, I whirled around, and without thinking I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tight. He made a low noise, and slid his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him, so that our bodies were flush. I could feel the hardness of his chest pressing against mine, the round circles of his button-down shirt making indents in my skin as he hugged me tight.
I pulled back to see that he was peering at me, hard. The shape of his lips was something completely new that I hadn't seen yet on his face. Not laughing, but not frowning. It was an expression wholly his own. At the corners of his eyes, the little crinkles deepened and from this close, I could see the swirl of stubble at his jaw line and smell the mingled scents of soap and warm pine rising off of him.
I jumped back, heart pounding and it had nothing to do with the money we'd just won. I was trying to move away from him, but my feet weren't obeying my brain and somehow his arm stayed draped around my shoulder, just like it belonged there.
"My lucky charm," he said, almost in wonder. "Ready to see what else we can do?"