Chapter 5 #3
And lower.
Gah! What was wrong with her?
‘Girl,’ she ended, because her brain was too preoccupied with risqué images to be thinking up more words to beat herself up with, and also because that was exactly how she’d acted.
She may be twenty-two, just won a Grammy and scored a huge record deal, but she’d acted like some teenager with a crush who’d never been kissed.
She had been kissed. Just not a lot. And not by somebody like Clay. And now she felt gauche and stupid.
A sigh sounded from somewhere above her and then fingers were slipping under her chin and exerting enough pressure to tilt her face upwards. But that didn’t mean she had to meet his eyes.
‘Stevie.’
His voice was low but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t lift her eyes and look at him. See the annoyance at her actions. The pity. Or worse, amusement at her clumsy attempt.
‘Stevie,’ he repeated, firmer this time. ‘Look at me.’
She swallowed. She had to do what he was asking, she knew – refusing to do so would only be further confirmation of her lack of maturity – but would it be too much to ask for a tiny sinkhole to open up, right now?
Just big enough to suck her in?
Drawing in a steady breath, she raised her eyes and met his gaze.
There was no judgement there. No pity. No mocking kind of amusement.
Just an amber steadiness that reminded her of the distant mountains.
‘It’s fine. You were celebrating. Your emotions were running high.
Sometimes these things happen in the madness of the moment. ’
They did?
She appreciated the out he was trying to give her but things like that did not happen to her. Although, from the sound of it, he was no stranger. It was probably the wrong time to wonder how often it had happened to Clay so she yanked herself back from that rabbit hole.
‘That’s still no excuse,’ she said, getting her train of thought back on track, ‘to force a clumsy, unwanted kiss on a guy I’ve seen twice, met once and barely know.’
He shook his head slowly as his gaze drifted to her mouth and back. ‘It wasn’t unwanted.’
Stevie’s lungs did that seizing again. What? Was he saying that he’d wanted it too? Or was that his subtle way of saying that while it wasn’t unwanted it had been clumsy?
‘It just wasn’t…’ His face was set in firm, serious lines as he searched for the word. ‘Wise.’
Well – duh. That was the understatement of the year. She nodded. ‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘You’re here for a month. You’ve got a big life ahead of you, a lot of dreams and a lot of success coming your way, and maybe that scares you.
Or maybe you’ve been wearing that ring a long time and you’re on the cusp of a whole new life now and you’re ready to leave the old one behind.
That’s only natural. But I’m not that guy. I’m not a first-time kind of guy.’
More heat flooded Stevie’s cheeks. Is that what he thought?
That she’d decided to trade in her purity ring and he was her…
first draft pick? It had been one kiss. One awkward, overly enthusiastic kiss, and she opened her mouth to say just that except she had been fantasising about Clay since yesterday.
Maybe on some kind of subconscious level, he wasn’t far off the mark?
But he was right. Clay Calhoun didn’t look like the kind of man a girl chose to gently initiate her into the joy of making love. No. He looked like the kind of man a girl picked when she wanted to know all the carnal ways of the flesh.
When she wanted to torch her life and have it ruined for all other men.
She lowered her eyes at the mere thought of that scenario, her gaze falling on her ring. ‘I suppose you think it’s silly,’ she murmured as her thumb pushed at the band from the underside, rotating the ring around her finger.
He seemed like such a… man of the world, walking through it with an ease Stevie could only hope to emulate. She must seem hopelessly na?ve in comparison.
The fingers under her chin lifted again, the hot searchlight of his gaze intent on her once more as she met his eyes.
‘No.’ He shook his head as his fingers slid away, his expression softer now but no less serious. ‘I don’t. I don’t think anyone who takes a solemn vow and honours it, particularly when the societal pressure to break it is constant and everywhere, is silly. I think it’s admirable.’
Stevie blinked. Ohhh… She’d have thought someone as worldly as Clay would think purity rings childish and na?ve.
Think she was childish and na?ve. She hadn’t expected admirable.
And if anybody else had said it, Stevie might have wondered if they were being facetious.
She probably wouldn’t have felt complimented by such a staid descriptor.
But coming from him? This guy who imbued the word admirable with a quiet kind of respect? Like it was his highest form of praise? Suddenly Stevie didn’t feel so gauche.
‘But…’ A small smile tugged at one side of his mouth. ‘You should probably ask for my sister to do your lesson tomorrow.’ He took a step back, his hand sliding from her waist as he touched the brim of his Stetson. ‘See you around.’
Stevie shivered a little at the inherent promise in those three little words despite the blast of sunshine overhead.
She watched as he led Gertie away, tracking the unhurried pace of both man and beast as they ambled side by side across the soft dirt of the ring, the hug of denim pulling across butt cheeks that look tight as autumn apples.
As he passed through the open gate he stopped and glanced over his shoulder, his eyes piercing hers across the distance. ‘It wasn’t clumsy,’ he said. ‘The kiss. It was nice.’
And then he turned away and while nice may have been a relatively insipid word to describe a kiss, she was suddenly, slowly, grinning like a loon.