Seeing Red(35)

His expression flitted from surprise to amusement when she snaked her left arm around his waist. He didn’t need further prompting when she tipped her chin up. He just lowered his head so his lips brushed hers. Tenderly and briefly, and the first kiss they’d shared since the wedding. The second time in their duplicitous relationship she’d kissed him just for show.

But something this time about the caress of his lips and the way he kept his face close afterward, lingering near her for a second serving, made her skin prickle and pulse race. His proximity to her was a heady thing she had no words to explain. It seemed like some sort of slow-igniting chemical reaction that burned hotter and brighter the more its components were exposed to air. So the next time she kissed him, straightening her spine to reach his face, she didn’t do it for show. She kissed him because she liked him and wanted him—because with all the women sitting around, he perked up at Meg’s attention and no one else’s.

She didn’t deserve him, and knew it, but she’d take what she could get until he figured that out.

“You smell good,” he whispered against her hair when she finally pulled her lips away. “Like berries. Fruit.”

“I’m sure it’s all the wine I’ve been guzzling the past few days. Probably leaching out through my pores now.”

“I haven’t seen you drinking.”

“You were at work.”

“Oh.”

She let her hand fall away from his back when Toby took off at a clip toward an ice-cream cart, but Seth pulled it back around him, and Mom got up to fetch the runner.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, his lips so close, his warm breath heated her to her core.

She balled her fist into the hem of Seth’s polo shirt. It must have been another of Sharon’s shopping spree finds, but the dark gray suited him well.

What was wrong? Everything was wrong, and she certainly didn’t want to explain it within a sea of onlookers. Already, they knew too much about her. Too much of the wrong information, but too much all the same.

“Just a little stressed,” she said, finally, and let out a long exhale when her hand found the hot skin of his abdomen just beneath the shirt hem. That small connection bolstered her. Grounded her, and let things make a bit more sense.

“Want to talk about it? Am I allowed to ask you that?”

She stopped kneading his skin, and furrowed her brow at him. “Why wouldn’t you be allowed?”

His mouth opened, then closed, and his jaw tightened. He seemed to be considering his words and their consequences. After a moment, he settled on, “I was advised to be careful.”

“In what way and by whom?”

“I think I’ve already said too much.”

Meg planned to press him for more information, but Toby and Mom returned with ice-cream bars and distributed one to each of them.

Meg glowered at Seth, lest he think he was off the hook that easily, and a wide grin spanned his handsome face.

Toby plunked down between them, which made Meg pull her arm free of Seth’s waist.

Mom leaned in close and whispered, “I can’t remember ever being seen in the same venue with Spike.”

Meg licked around the base of her ice cream and pondered that. Naturally, her parents had met Spike…eventually, but had they all ever been out in the same place? If they had, Meg couldn’t remember it.

She whispered back, “Is that a judgment or an exaltation?”

Mom seemed to ponder it, then leaned back in. “I like Seth. You did good this time. He’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of.”

“We all need to be taken care of. Every one of us in different ways. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re a sociopath.”

“In what way, exactly, do I need to be taken care of?”

Mom rolled her eyes, shook her head, and bit into her ice cream’s crunch coating. “I must have failed somewhere raising you,” she said, then repeated the sentiment to Dad. “We messed up somewhere.”

“Huh?” Dad tore his gaze from the lead guitarist’s discordant solo and widened his eyes at his wife.

“We messed up,” Mom repeated.

He patted the ground beside him. “You need napkins?”

Mom sighed.

“Hey!” Toby called out with a giggle as he was lifted bodily from the blanket and tossed into the air.

Meg tipped her head back to find the child thief was only Curt, who set Toby on the ground before ruffling his messy hair.

Erica knelt in the small gap between Seth and Meg and gave the big man a bit of a squeeze. “Hey, guys. Didn’t know you were going to be here, or I would have packed a bigger picnic.”