Dangerous Flirt (2 page)

“Uh…thanks.” She fidgeted with her menu then stuffed her hands in her lap.

Oh hell. What was he doing? This was his little sister’s best friend, practically a second sister since she’d spent so much time at their house while growing up. Beth was not a possible fuck buddy, which was all he wanted or needed.

Damn straight. The ink on his divorce papers
had only been dry for eight months. Relationships were not on his radar right now, which meant Beth inhabited a no-fucking zone.

An awkward silence descended while he tried to figure out how to disengage his foot from his big mouth. Luckily, the arrival of their waiter with the chips and salsa released the tension.

“So are you ready to order?” The waiter held his pen at the ready.

“Yeah, we’ll
have the Double Date. I have a Dos Equis. Do you want a beer?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not really a drinker. I’ll take a Pepsi.”

The waiter scribbled down their order and hustled back to the kitchen. Hank went back to wondering how to fill the silence.

He didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just the way he is. Hank Layton flirts the
way normal human beings breathe
.

Beth had been there. Almost done that. Wasn’t going back for more.

Okay. That helped to bring her heart rate back to normal, if you considered cheetah-speed normal. Of course, after the day she’d had, it was no wonder her reactions were out of whack. She took a drink of ice-cold water, watching Hank over the top of her glass, and almost dropped it. He was staring
right at her. Her stomach fluttered—which was better than the twisted anxiety tying her guts up in knots since this morning because of the latest in a string of threatening calls.

This feeling was all about Hank, all six feet, three inches of him. She’d memorized that stat his first year of playing quarterback for the University of Nebraska. She’d tacked the page with his picture and stats from
a football program to the back of her closet in high school. She would have taped it to the ceiling above her bed, but couldn’t begin to think of a way to explain that one to her abuelita. Or Claire, who would have reminded her that Hank was her bossy oldest brother with the world’s meanest girlfriend. The one who had become his wife and, now, his ex-wife.

A pair of dark jeans encased his long
legs, loose enough to be casual and tight enough to cling to the ass she lusted after despite knowing she shouldn’t. An untucked Nebraska football T-shirt covered his wide shoulders and hid the washboard abs that haunted the restless nights she spent alone in bed, unable to sleep.

“So,” Hank drawled. “How’s the world treating you today?”

Honestly? Like a redheaded stepchild
. “I’ll live.”

“That’s
always good news.” He smirked. “Rough day?”

“No doubt about it. You?”

“Every day since mom roped me into that Founder’s Day fiasco is a mess. It’s her second favorite topic since she and dad moved back permanently to Dry Creek.”

The waiter delivered their drinks.

Hank took a long pull from the beer bottle. “I have a proposition to make. Let’s not talk about our day, the crazy people around
us or any other general bitching.”

“I’m game.”

“What should we talk about?”

“The weather?”

He rolled his eyes. “Lame.”

“Politics?”

“Hell no. I’m trying to eat here.” He popped a chip heavy with salsa into his mouth.

“Okay, so you pick.”

“Sex.” The word came out in a single-syllable dare.

The frisson of attraction that normally buzzed in the background whenever she was near Hank moved
front and center. It reached out, making her nipples tingle. “I don’t—”

“No specifics,” he interrupted. “Just general factoids. I’ll start. Women who work out have more orgasms than those who don’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“You should know that already, you’re at the gym what, three times a week?”

“Five,” she squeaked out.

The green in his hazel eyes darkened and he stared at her expectantly.

Her breath caught. Damn, she couldn’t think over the dirty movie playing in her head at the moment. But the longer she stayed silent, the greener his eyes turned and the wetter her panties became. Desperate, her brain finally stumbled upon a factoid.

“The most popular flavor of edible underwear is cherry. Totally true, I read it in
Cosmo
.”

“Cherry’s always been a favorite flavor of mine.”

When did her bra get so tight? It had fit perfectly this morning. Now the lace cups scratched against her hard nipples with enough friction to annoy but not enough to ease the lust turning her brain to mush.

“Got one.” He chuckled softly. “Vegetarians like to give blow jobs more than meat eaters.”

The waiter picked that moment to arrive at their table with a tray loaded down with Mexican food.
He acted as if he hadn’t heard anything, but the tips of his ears were pink. Keeping his eyes glued to the table, he made fast work of unloading the food, the dishes clanking on the wood table, then sped back into the main dining room.

They busied themselves with filling their plates from the family-style serving dishes. More relaxed than she’d been in months, she snagged an enchilada, cut a
chimichanga in half and scooped rice onto her plate. She savored the first bite of cheese and onion wrapped in a handmade corn tortilla. Not as good as abuelita’s, but awful close. Next, a bite of beef chimichanga. The deep-fried shell snapped under her fork as she cut off a piece, making sure to get some guacamole with it. The seasoned beef revitalized her taste buds. She felt more herself with every
second that passed.

“It’s not true, you know,” she said before taking a second bite of chimichanga.

“What’s that?”

“About blow jobs. Carnivores love oral sex.”

Hank’s cock caught her meaning a full five seconds before his brain and he choked on his enchilada.

His eyes watered as he reached for his beer. All the while, she ate her chimichanga
like nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t just given him a month’s worth of wank-off material.

She blinked her big brown eyes at him, an innocent look on her face. “You okay?”

No. Absolutely not. “Affirmative,” he managed to sputter.

Entranced, he watched as she did some sort of girl trick where she flicked her head and all of that luscious, shoulder-length brown hair fell into place. God,
what he’d give to bury his fingers in that silk while she went down on him. His mouth went dry. He didn’t think it was possible, but he got harder.

Let’s talk about sex
. What a boneheaded idea that had been.

“The workout thing?” She paused to take a drink of her Pepsi. “I can confirm that.”

Fuck.

B
eth smoothed down her white skirt, as if by doing so, she could soothe the lust buzzing inside her like she had swallowed a beehive. It had been like this every day for the past three weeks since her dinner with Hank. And at night? Her fantasies would make porn stars blush.

What had she been thinking that night at dinner? Just remembering her quip about carnivores had heat steaming
her skin. Flirting with Hank wasn’t just swimming out of her depth, it equated to treading water in shark-infested ocean with a twenty-pound weight tied to her toes. Not a good idea.

And yet, here she was in Claire’s living room, toasting her best friend’s soon-to-be-rebuilt Harvest Bistro while denying her secret hope that Hank would throw her over his shoulder, sneak her away and ravage her
until her body turned to Jell-O.

“Guess what I just heard.” Claire nudged Beth with an elbow.

She looked down at her best friend. Claire had every right to bask. Everything in her life had gotten back on track and as a bonus, she had Jake to share it with. It had taken a psycho killer and one completely twisted family to bring the two of them together, but they’d managed to turn all that ugly
into something beautiful.

“Spill it.”

Claire hooked her arm through Beth’s elbow and tugged her to one of the few unoccupied spots in the living room. “That troll of an ex-wife of Hank’s, Amanda, used her alimony payments as collateral in some investment scheme tied to the new casino.”

“What kind of scheme?”

“Well, you know how the Lakota Tribe announced yesterday the casino entrance would
be on Highway Five?”

“Uh-huh.”

“She was part of the group that bought Fred Nathan’s farm, which butts up against the reservation. That bitch is going to make a mint using Hank’s money. Why he even agreed to alimony, I’ll never know. The woman blackmailed him with the promise of babies for most of their marriage.”

Beth’s stomach dropped.

Her nonexistent womb clenched. Veterans who lost limbs
in war reported feeling their phantom limbs decades after it had been blown to bits. Why shouldn’t she feel the uterus she’d lost after her doctor had found a fibroid tumor four months ago?

For the millionth time, she almost told Claire about the outpatient laser surgery, but couldn’t. Saying it out loud would make it real. And after losing the rest of her family already, Beth couldn’t bear to
admit she’d lost the future family she hadn’t realized she wanted until it was too late.

“What? I didn’t know he wanted kids.”

“Oh yeah. Mr. Mom, that’s Hank. But don’t tell my mom. She’s on his case enough as it is.” Claire paused as a trio of women walked by. “When he told me that Amanda even faked a pregnancy to keep him from leaving at the end? What a complete bitch. No wonder he’s dating
half the county.”

Beth shoved her secret into a dark room in her mind and added one more line to the seemingly endless list of reasons why Hank wasn’t for her. “Wow.”

Fire practically blazed from the ends of Claire’s red hair. “Exactly.” She pivoted, the look on her face the same as the time she’d talked Beth into climbing the fence around the country club’s pool and going skinny dipping with
Mike Hanson and Steve Gerke. “You should date Hank.”

“No.”

“Hear me out. You have the same sense of humor. You’re both smart. You’ve had a crush on him for forever.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that look. Of course I know. And, you two could get married so we’d be sisters!”

Stall, Beth. Stall
. “Why is it people who are in a relationship suddenly want everyone to join them?”

“Don’t
try to change the subject.”

Chalk one up to the best friend bullshit detector. “I don’t want to date Hank.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason.”

“You know why not.”

“Are you talking about what happened between you two a million years ago? Really? Ancient history. Come up with a better reason or I’m breaking out my matchmaking skills.”

Beth gulped, her brain fizzling under the pressure. She
wouldn't risk losing Claire and the whole Layton clan, who'd practically adopted her, if a roll in the hay with Hank turned into heartbreak and ugliness. And if it did work out, she'd be forcing him to give up having kids. She wouldn't accept either option.

She latched on to the only part of the truth she could say out loud. “He’s your brother.”

“So?”

“If things went wrong, and you know it
would end badly, it could make things awkward between us.”

Claire snaked an arm around Beth’s much higher waist and gave her a quick hug. “Oh, Beth. There’s not a damn thing in this world that could submarine us.”

“Still…”

“Fine. I’ll keep my big mouth shut,” she huffed. “But if I end up with another bitch for a sister-in-law, I will hold it against you forever.”