“Okay.” Lifting an imperious finger, she slid her coffee to one side, clearing the battlefield between them. “One, my mama does not run my life. Two, if I wanted to be married to him, I would have been, a long time ago. Newsflash . . . we’re not attracted to one another. Kissing him was like sucking on a goldfish–”
He winced, but she ignored him, gearing up. Maybe Scott hadn’t wanted to listen, but Colton damn well would, whether he wanted to hear her or not.
“He is myfriend. Are we close? Yes. We have never been a thing, we are never going to be a thing, and I could not be happier for him that he has finally found the woman who deserves him and loves him the way he ought to be loved. I was never that woman.” She pressed her fingers together and stabbed them at him. “So if you don’t want to be with me, come up with a better argument than your cousin, Colt.”
Frowning, lips parted, he stared at her. Silence unfolded, broken by the chatter of the teenage baristas, the low hum of conversation among other patrons, and the quiet strum of the guitar player.
A slow smile pulled at her lips. “You don’t have one.”
“I don’t.” He breathed the words, cup balanced in his dangerously lax grip. His poleaxed expression rang adorable as well. Oh, she wanted to grab him and kiss him when he looked like that.
She smoothed her bangs with a fingertip, his gaze tracking the movement. “Then why don’t we become that kind of friends?”
He paused, a breath stretching between them. “It’s dangerous, Holly, if it doesn’t work out.”
“Such a pessimist.” She allowed herself a small, teasing smile, although that lack of hope in his dark eyes hurt her heart. “Why wouldn’t it work out?”
A hard swallow moved the muscles in his throat. “I’m not always easy.”
Still smiling, affection warming her, she leaned forward once more and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I already knew that.”
A wry chuckle full of his rare amusement hung in the air, and her smile widened. Relief loosened the tight bands about her chest.
“We don’t have to go fast,” she said with a shrug. She spread her hands. “We continue on being friends, but more. I can touch you or kiss you, and we don’t have to ignore the attraction.”
His body stilled, muted electricity humming off him, eyes suddenly burning hot. “That means I’d be able to touch you.”
“Newsflash, Colton.” With an airy gesture, she lifted her cup. “I’d love for you to touch me.”
“Slow.” He fanned a hand, palm down, between them. “We’re doing this slow.”
She could handle the idea of being touched slow by him. All sorts of ideas unfolded in her head, like a series of still shots capturing his hands on her skin, in the sunlight, in shadow, in near darkness. “Slow is fine by me.”
For a long moment, he studied her, brows dipped into that familiar vee. “Where do you want this to go, Holly?”
“You know the rule.” She rolled her shoulders again, a hint of nerves trembling in her stomach. She’d spent so much time wishing for what she couldn’t have with Scott that the idea of wishing for something she might be able to have resembled peering over the edge of the lime pit, especially at night. The height and depth and the possibility of falling left her dizzy andexhilarated and terrified. “You don’t date someone you wouldn’t marry.”
He gave a slow nod, thin upper lip pressed tighter in consideration.
That nod, that look, told her nothing, but she refused to be intimidated. “How do you feel about that?”
“I’m still sitting here.” He passed a palm sideways in punctuation, and relief left her giddy.
“Do you want children?” The question equaled throwing herself off the crumbling edge of the lime pit, but she’d learned the hard way to ask what was important up front.
One slashing brow arced into a sharp angle. “I could handle one or two.”
“Good.” That sensation was like being caught before she crashed, held tight in a gentle embrace. A relieved breath trembled past her lips.
“Slow, Holly.” With deliberate movements, he sat forward to set his cup on the table. He picked up the other half of the doughnut. “We’re going to do this right.”
Breaking off a bite of her half, she rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t planning to go home and get naked with you tonight, Colton.”
“Course not.” He sprawled in the chair again, lifting his doughnut. “You save that getting-naked-off-the-bat for Coach Z.”
The return of his normal teasing thrilled her, but she pulled a frown at him. “Oh, my Lord, why did I even tell you?”
“Because we can’t have secrets between us, babe.” Even white teeth bit off a swallow of doughnut. “I don’t work that way.”
