On her first throw, she scored three points. Spencer knew he was supposed to cheer for her—he was on her team, after all—but instead he glared. “Show-off.”
“Oh, you’re just jealous a girl is beating you,” Alex said, sticking out her tongue.
He wanted to kiss her.
Her guard had dropped slowly as the game went on. By the time it was over and Alex and Violet were declared the winners—Spencer too, although he hadn’t contributed a thing—Alex’s face was flushed, her smile warm and open. Spencer knew she was in her element here. This was where she felt comfortable.
These were her family and friends, and he’d threatened that a little with his presence.
But he wouldn’t have changed it. Not when he got to see Alex dance with her sister, singing Bob Seger at the top of her lungs. Not when he got to see her wrestle with Honeybear on the ground.
Not when he got to see her play fighting with Brent, throwing soft punches at each other until Violet joined in, tackling Brent to the ground as he howled dramatically that he was being ganged up on.
Alex on a normal day was radiant, but here, surrounded by people who loved her and whom she loved back, well, she was breathtaking.
Yes, Spencer was in town for only an indefinite period, but he didn’t want to spend the whole time fighting his attraction to her.
Of course, Alex had to agree to that. To want to see him knowing all along there would be an end date. So maybe they could spend the time he was in town casually. Together. In bed. Against the boot of his car.
Maybe a shower.
He glanced up in time to see Alex walk into the house, shutting the screen door behind her. He glanced around the yard. Everyone was winding down a little now. The sun was almost set. Penny and Nick were cuddling on a chaise.
So Spencer took a deep breath and followed Alex inside.
ALEX WET A tissue and wiped below her eyes. After all the laughing and running around she’d done, her eyeliner and mascara weren’t holding up as well as they normally did.
She fixed her hair, eyeing herself in the bathroom mirror.
She looked . . . happy. In a way she wasn’t sure she’d been happy in a long time. Sunday dinners were always a highlight of her week, but this one was even better.
She didn’t want to think that the reason was the posh Brit who couldn’t throw a damn washer to save his life.
Dropping her head between her shoulders, she chuckled, remembering his frustration and cursing under his breath.
Turned out Posh was kinda fun. Who knew?
She finished up in the bathroom and when she opened the door, the very man she couldn’t stop thinking about was leaning on the wall in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, feet crossed at the ankles.
He looked up and met her gaze. “Hey, Sprite.”
She motioned behind her. “Uh, bathroom’s open.”
“I didn’t come in here for the restroom.”
She blinked. “Oh.”
He turned until he faced her, with his one shoulder braced against the wall. “I came in here to talk to you.”
“Oh.” When did she lose the ability to talk in sentences?
He ran a finger through his hair and glanced around. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Or . . . ”
Alex blinked. “What’s wrong with here?”
Spencer’s fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on his leg. “Maybe somewhere private?”
Alex hesitated.
He blew out a breath. “Look, I’m not trying to . . . I don’t want to . . . attack you in your boss’s house. I’d just like to talk to you is all. Without being interrupted. Is that all right?”
She appreciated the explanation. “Um, sure, we can just . . . ” She waved a hand toward the front door. “Maybe just sit on the porch? No one will come out front to bother us.”
He nodded and placed a warm hand on her lower back, which he kept there until they stood leaning on the railing of the front porch. He rubbed his thumb in a circle and then dropped it at his side. Alex bit her lip to keep from asking him to keep touching her.
This was all a little too close. A little too comfortable. Alex knew enough about herself to know that when she fell for someone, she fell deep, with all she had.
The last person she’d fallen for had been Robby, and look where that got her.
She couldn’t do this again. She just couldn’t, especially with a man like Posh, so unlike her in every way and from New York, for God’s sake.
Spencer cleared his throat and looked down at his hands where they gripped the railing. “Look, I . . . don’t have anything rehearsed, but I know there’re some things I want to say. Will you let me?”
Alex nodded.
He turned toward her, with one hand braced on the railing, and raised a tentative hand. He brushed back some strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail and ran his knuckles over her cheek. She stared at him, willing herself not to flinch at the touch.
His fingers skimmed her shoulder, down her arm, until he gripped her hand and held it. She stared at their intertwined fingers—her rough, tanned ones next to his long pale ones.
“I’d like to take you out on a proper date.”
Alex’s gaze jerked to his. “A date?”
“A date.”
“B-but why?”
“Because I like you.” His blue eyes were scanning her face, his lips parted as he seemed to carefully plot out his words. “Because I want to get to know you better.”
“I—”
“You like casual, right?” he asked softly.
She couldn’t look at him anymore. She turned her head and examined the cars parked without rhyme or reason in Cal’s front yard. “Yes, yes I do.”
He squeezed her hand, but she wasn’t ready to look at him yet. “And have you always been that way?”
His voice was still calm, soothing, and she wished he wasn’t so perceptive. Damn, smarty-pants Posh. She shook her head and dropped her eyes to the garden below, which was in serious need of weeding.
He tugged on her hand, so she finally looked up at him, those beautiful high cheekbones, the full mouth that she knew intimately could kiss very, very well.
“So this can be casual, right? While I’m in town?” he asked. “It can’t be more . . . because I’ll be leaving. But while I’m here, why deny this . . . spark between us?” He stepped closer and raised their clasped hands to her chest. “You feel it too, right?”
She could do nothing but nod mutely, because her whole body was a spark right now. The heat of Spencer, the smell of his cologne, the rush of his breath along her flushed cheeks.
She remembered his voice. Tell me what you like.
This could work. They could burn bright until the spark died and then Spencer would return to New York and she’d go back to her life.
She smiled a little, altering her voice into a tease. “Want to rough it a little while you’re in town, then? Before you go back to dating women who know which fork to use for their sherbet?”
Spencer laughed. “You don’t use forks for sherbet.”
“Whatever,” she muttered.
He cupped her cheek and swiped a thumb over her cheekbone. “Maybe I’ve always liked it a bit rough, hmm?”
She lifted onto her toes and kissed him, not caring about their differences right now or where they’d be next month—or anything.
Because Spencer was here now, and he knew how to touch her and talk to her. He tasted like beer, and she gripped his shoulders, trying to get closer, so much closer.
Spencer groaned and gripped the back of her thighs, hauling her up his body. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he set her down on the edge of the railing. He ground his hips into her, and she made a pleading sound in her throat as he began to lick along her jaw and down her neck.
“Bloody hell,” he panted against her skin. “We need to meet in public so we stop trying to rip each other’s clothes off.”
“What if being in public doesn’t stop us?” she asked, clutching his shoulders tightly and rolling her hips against his hardness between her legs. She reached down and stroked him through his pants, grinning as he moaned heavily and bit down on her shoulder.
“You drive me mad,” he said, cupping a breast through her thin shirt.
“Feeling is mutual,” she said, squeezing the hard ridge tighter.
He lifted his head, his mouth wet, his eyes heavy-lidded. “So you’ll let me take you out?”
“I’ll let you take me out. If you promise to take me to bed afterward.”
He laughed, although the sound was a little strangled since she was still teasing him through his pants. She wondered if they could get away with a quick hand job.
“I don’t know. Taking you to bed wasn’t part of the original deal.”
“Sorry,” she said, then licked a wet strip up the side of his neck. “That’s my stipulation.”
There was a cracking sound, and Alex froze. Her gaze met Spencer’s, who stared back at her with his brow furrowed.
“What was that?” he muttered.
“I don’t—” The railing shifted under her weight, and she had a moment of recognition before she was falling backward, Spencer coming with her, since she was still clinging to him like a spider monkey.
There was a moment of freefall before she crashed hard on a bush, the cracking of twigs and ripping of leaves echoing around her. Spencer landed on top of her and she cried out as the railing dug into her lower back.