Amazingly, the tension dissipated from her shoulders and she shot him a sideways grin. ‘You jealous?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t even have to think about it. Of course he was jealous. And suddenly he could tell she was studying him in the dark, a situation that was never very comfortable for him.
At last she spoke. ‘Garrett, you had no reason to be jealous. Don’t you know you were by far the most interesting man there?’
He fought back a wave of confusion. Kendra Davis had wrong-footed him again. ‘No. I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, I knew it.’ She slid her arm through his, leaned in on her tiptoes, and settled a kiss on his cheek. ‘And so did every other woman who saw you there tonight. The lust was rampant, Garrett, totally rampant.’
He pulled her to him and kissed her on the mouth. ‘Oh, now you’re just toying with me. You wanted to slap me again. I could see it on your face. You wanted to do … Well, probably all sorts of unthinkable stuff to me.’
‘And you deserved it,’ she said, as they continued their walk. ‘Problem is you might have liked it a little too much if I’d slapped you, and I was too angry to give you something you might like.’
This time he laughed out loud, causing a couple walking a pair of corgis to start and glance over their shoulders before hurrying on down the lit path. ‘And you think what happened up there –’ He nodded to the hill they had just descended, and the hawthorn grove. ‘You think that wasn’t something I like?’
‘That –’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘That wasn’t for you. That was for me.’
‘Maybe so, but it worked for me on a lot of levels.’
He could see the corners of her mouth turn up in that quirky smile that always made him wonder if she was laughing at him or at herself. ‘Guess you got lucky, then, didn’t you?’
This time she let him slide his arm around her, slipping his thumb down into the waistband of her low riders just enough to stroke the swell of her hip, and she returned the favor, stroking his back beneath his hoodie. A part of him was disappointed that the walk back to his house wasn’t a longer one, but the closeness of her, the wild restlessness of her, was already making him horny again by the time they slipped up the back steps and into the kitchen.
Chapter Eighteen
While he locked the door, she tiptoed into the living room and peeked out into the front yard between the heavy drapes, which had remained drawn with the discovery of the press. ‘Looks like the night watch is in place,’ she called back over her shoulder. ‘Somebody’s even out there in a damn motorhome.’
By the time she’d returned to his side, he’d extricated the remains of last night’s pizza from the refrigerator and was chomping on a cold piece.
‘Starving.’ He spoke around a mouthful. ‘You can nuke it if you want.’ He nodded to the microwave.
‘I can’t wait that long.’ She slapped his hands away from the box and grabbed her own piece. ‘Besides, I get really grouchy if I don’t eat regularly.’
‘That would be a shock,’ he said.
She flipped him off, and he blew her a kiss.
He pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket and checked it. ‘Missed call from Don, missed call from Don. Text from Don to check my email. Missed call from Don. Jesus, the bastard’s a bore,’ Garrett said.
She pulled out her iPhone and nodded as she scrolled down. ‘Yep. I see what you mean. Still, I suppose we should at least make an effort. I mean, he may have a great new feminine hygiene product lined up for Tess to endorse; more money for both of you.’
He pulled her into his arms and she offered a little yelp as he lifted her onto the counter. ‘There’s nothing Don can possibly have to say that can be worth missing out on what I’ve got right here.’ He ran a hand up under her sweatshirt and cupped her bare breasts in turn. Her bra was still stuffed in the pocket of his hoodie, and God, was it a turn-on to watch the frontal action when Kendra’s breasts were free.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and lazily nibbled on his bottom lip. ‘Better call him,’ she said as she pulled away with a flick of her tongue. ‘Then we can get on to better things.’ She nodded down to where his cock was beginning to tent his track bottoms again.
While he pulled up Don’s number, Kendra grabbed a couple of bottles of Mirror Pond Pale Ale from the refrigerator, opened them, and handed one to him just as Don’s voice boomed over the speaker phone.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
Garrett looked at Kendra. ‘I’ve got you on speaker phone, Don.’ He winked at her. And they both smiled at the shuffle and huff of embarrassment on the other end of the device.