The Single Undead Moms(53)

“No.”

“Is it because you don’t want me?” he asked, stepping forward again, head cocked to the side, studying my reaction as he closed the distance between us. And my reaction was to take a step back until I bumped into my van.

I shook my head. “Definitely not.”

He nodded, keeping his eyes locked on mine, which seemed inadvisable, considering the whole apex-predator thing. He leaned toward me, wrapping his big, warm hand around my left hip and pulling me a bit closer. “I’m gonna kiss you now.”

“Thank you for the heads-up.” I murmured as my tongue darted out to moisten my lips. Thanks to my heightened senses, I could hear the increase in his heartbeat, scent that edge of excitement spreading through his system in the form of pheromones. I was more than flattered by his response.

I looked forward to kissing him like kids look forward to Christmas. What the hell was wrong with me? I was a grown woman with a child. I should not be all giddy and giggly. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. I wanted to know what it was like to kiss Wade Tucker. But he seemed content to hover just outside of my reach, rubbing the tip of his nose along my cheek, letting the bristles of his beard tease my skin.

I moaned softly as his hands slid down the small of my back and braced around my hips. I threaded my fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face as I stared into his eyes. Hesitant, I pressed forward, letting my lips slide along his in a sort of glancing blow, just a taste. Where Finn’s kiss was cool and sly, a tease with a promise of more, Wade laid out everything he had to offer, consuming my mouth with his warm, sweet force.

I withdrew, and he followed, growling softly and crossing his arms behind me to draw me closer. He pulled my bottom lip between his teeth, nibbling gently before nudging my lips apart and deepening my tentative kiss.

I twisted my hands in his hair, sliding up the hood of my van as he leaned in. His palm skimmed down my thigh, wrapping it around his waist. I gasped into his mouth, and he took the opportunity to skate his tongue against my growing fangs. He pulled back, and I panicked a bit, clapping my hand over my mouth. But he was giving me the filthiest grin, rubbing the reddened tip of his tongue over swollen lips.

I swear, my panties spontaneously combusted right there.

“Excuse me!” someone shouted. “This is a public place! There are children present!”

The spell was broken.

My eyes went saucer-sized, and Wade reluctantly let go of my leg. We turned to see an incensed man loading his towheaded children into a blue pickup truck. He looked vaguely familiar, in that “I think we’ve met before, but I can’t guarantee we liked each other” kind of way. I couldn’t put a name with the face, but given the way he was glaring at me, he seemed to know me. Great. My already tarnished reputation needed an addition like “parking-lot hussy.”

“Seems to me the problem is you’ve got your kids out past ten on a school night, Roy!” Wade shouted back, stepping between me and the angry dad.

Roy. I sighed, thunking my head between Wade’s shoulder blades. Roy Pannabaker. He was a high school classmate of Rob’s, come to think of it. And he had come to the funeral, overflowing with condolences and within five minutes asking what I was planning to do with Rob’s fishing tackle and tools.

“Go home, Wade!” Roy shouted.

“You get your kids home, Roy!” Wade hollered. “And you can forget about me fixing your carburetor at cost next time!”

Roy muttered something under his breath that super-sensitive ears only picked up as “mash-hole” and squealed out of the parking lot. Both of my hands were on my face now, and I was giggling, actually giggling. When I thought about it, that made sense, because I had just made out in a parking lot like some high school hussy. Wade seemed to find it pretty damned funny, too, because he was leaning his forehead against my neck, shoulders shaking with laughter.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” I said, gasping.

“Well, ya didn’t do it alone.”

If Rob had been confronted with such a public scene, especially in front of someone he knew, it would have been recriminations and griping all the way home. But Wade just shrugged it off.

I so wanted to date Wade Tucker.

“Now.” Wade reached to my driver’s-side door and opened it for me. “Next weekend?”

“Yes,” I told him, letting him hand me into the van like something out of a Regency novel. He shut the door as I started the engine. “I would love to . . . And next time, remove Roy’s carburetor altogether.”


It wasn’t until I got home that night (and had helped Danny complete a spectacular poster, if I did say so myself) that I had a sort of hormonal epiphany. I’d kissed two men in the course of two days. I’d never kissed two men in the course of two years. I hadn’t even dated since Rob died, much less kissed anybody. And now I was stringing along two perfectly nice men—OK, at least one perfectly nice man, because I wasn’t sure about Finn. At the very least, I was engaged in a more than platonic relationship with both of them, which was way more than I was used to.