Foolproof Love(12)
“I’m fine. Go on your date.” She waved him away.
He went, but he could feel her eyes on his back the entire time, and her words rang in his ears. The thought of settling down in one place was enough to have him breaking out in hives. It was a small part of the toxicity that had been Adam as a teenager—the desire to go anywhere but here, to get in a truck and just drive until he met the horizon. He’d failed a lot of people when he left.
Just like his father.
He shook off the thought through sheer force of will and climbed up into his truck. Jules apparently lived over that shop of hers, and so it took him ten minutes from leaving his mama’s house to pulling into the parking lot. Devil’s Falls was like that, though. It took fifteen minutes to drive from one end of the town limits to the other—and that was only because of the twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit and single stoplight.
He got out of his truck and looked up and down Main Street. There were the same two bars down the street, the same diner, the same hardware store, the same everything. Nothing had changed—not even a fresh coat of paint. The only difference between the street now and when he was eighteen was the addition of a Starbucks down by the stoplight and the café in front of him that used to be a pizza joint.
Restlessness hit him, fierce enough to have him clenching his fists. It wouldn’t take much to get back in his truck and keep driving, to search out the nearest rodeo and put in his registration. Everyone in Texas knew him. They’d get him in. He could be on the back of a bull inside of two days. Then maybe he wouldn’t have to think about the circles beneath his mama’s eyes or the worried looks Lenora kept shooting her when she thought neither of them was watching.
No. You promised you’d stay, and that’s what you’re going to do.
Adam paused to take in Cups and Kittens again. It was such a random-ass idea—a coffee shop where people could come and spend time with cats—but it was obvious that it was something Jules felt passionately about. Hell, he’d spent a grand total of twenty minutes with her and he could tell that wasn’t the only thing.
Judging from that kiss, she was passionate about quite a few things. Just thinking about it calmed the impulse to get the hell out of town. He could do this. The distraction Jules offered pretty much guaranteed he could do this.
It’s just a matter of figuring out how far you want to take it.
Now that was a dumb thing to think. He knew exactly how far he wanted to go with Jules Rodriguez.
All the goddamn way.
Adam shook his head, damning himself to hell for the kind of thoughts that type of thing brought up. Her wrapping those long legs around his waist, her mouth on his, her making helpless little noises while he… “Get a hold of yourself. You’re not sleeping with the woman. You’re taking her on a date.” She was a good girl—and Daniel’s cousin.
But she wants to be bad.
He ignored the voice inside him and marched around back to the door where she’d told him to meet her. He barely got his hand up to knock when it was flung open, revealing a breathless Jules. She must have run down the narrow stairs behind her, because her cheeks were flushed and her chest rose and fell hard enough that it looked like her breasts were in danger of spilling free.
Adam nearly swallowed his tongue. “What in the hell are you wearing?”
She looked panicked. “Oh, this little thing?” She pulled at the bottom of her tied-up tank top, belying her attempt at being casual. Not that he was complaining, exactly, but the shorts were several precious inches shorter than the ones she’d worn the other night—so short that the pockets peeked out in the front and he was pretty damn sure if she turned around, he’d be able to see the bottom curve of her ass.
She looked like some country-music video piece of tail.
The only thing that was the same was the well-worn boots on her feet. Jules pushed her mass of dark hair off her face and frowned. “Is something wrong? You said we were going out to burgers, so I didn’t dress up and—”
Fuck, she was killing him. “It’s fine.” But the slice of stomach and length of her long legs and the cleavage that her low-cut tank top revealed…they were making it hard to remember that he was supposed to keep his hands to himself when they weren’t in public trying to make a spectacle of themselves. It’s still Jules beneath the clothes—what little of them there are. Right. He just had to remember that, and—
Adam’s thoughts screeched to a halt as she turned around and bent over to pick up her purse on the bottom stair. He’d been right about the shorts playing peekaboo with her ass. He gripped the doorframe, unable to tear his gaze away from the place where her mile-long legs met the curve of her ass. The shorts didn’t reveal as much as he’d expected, but somehow that only made them more erotic. He wanted to set his teeth to that curve and then lick his way around…