Page 115 of Untouchable
It almost always did.
Caleb wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say in response to that comment, but he really didn’t want to talk about Wes right now. “He’s okay.”
“You’ve known him a long time?”
“Since elementary school. Why?”
She gave a little shrug. “Just curious. Is he married?”
Caleb didn’t like the direction of these questions. Why the hell should Kelly care about Wes anyway? “No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Why?”
“They’re normal questions, aren’t they? Isn’t he your friend?”
“I guess.”
“Why are you so grumpy?” Kelly asked him with a frown. Her dress had shifted as she’d adjusted in the seat and was now revealing an even larger expanse of her deep cleavage.
“I am not grumpy,” Caleb gritted out, feeling like the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. “I just don’t know why we need to have a whole conversation about Wes, if that’s all right with you.”
Kelly stuck out her chin as the car pulled into the street and headed back to Caleb’s house outside the city, which was over an hour away. “Are you jealous?” she asked, looking almost surprised. Her eyes seemed tired, strained, as if she’d had an emotionally stressful evening herself, although he wasn’t sure why or how that would have been the case. But they were now flashing with something that taunted him.
“I am not jealous.” He wished this topic had never come up. Wished he’d not attended this party after all. Wished one of his few friends in the world hadn’t shown up this evening.
Kelly took a deep breath, and something about that breath struck Caleb as strange—like she was gearing herself up somehow. But then he forgot all about the strangeness when she scooted over next to him on the supple leather seat. She gave him a teasing grin and slid her hand from his belly up to his shoulder. “I think maybe you are jealous.”
“Kelly,” Caleb warned, his impatience boiling up. He needed to be left alone so he could recover his control—of himself, of his feelings, of his guilt. If he didn’t, the roiling intensity inside him might escape, and Caleb couldn’t allow that to happen.
“What?” she replied, tilting her face up toward him. “Why don’t you just admit it? You’re jealous and angry because your friend made a move on me.”
Caleb made a harsh noise in his throat and jerked toward her. “So hedidmake a move on you?”
The corners of Kelly’s full lips turned up, although her eyes still looked rather stressed. Which didn’t make much sense since Kelly should have just spent a relatively uneventful evening. “Of course he did. And what would you do if I told you I was… tempted by his offer?”
Caleb narrowed his eyes. He knew she was teasing him on purpose. Heknewit. But he couldn’t suppress the feral response. “Were you?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “What would you do if I was?”
“Were you?” he demanded again, leaning toward her and taking one of her upper arms with his hand.
He was being irrational. This was absolutely stupid. Why the hell couldn’t he act like his normal self again?
He was being played by her. She was trying to get him to let go of his feelings, and he was allowing it. Letting her play him.
Almost as if he wanted to let himself go.
“Would you try to convince me otherwise?” Kelly teased him, her voice husky and seductive. She took one of his hands and placed it on her thigh, just where the slit of her skirt exposed the bare skin above her knee. “Would you try to prove to me that you have more to offer than he does?”
“You already know what I have to offer you,” he managed to say in a semblance of his natural voice. Every word he spoke was rougher and throatier than it should have been, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he was acting this way.
His hand remained on her thigh, and he could feel both the fabric of her dress and her supple skin beneath his palm. He didn’t move it any farther though. He’d always been happy to follow her lead whenever she wanted to be sexually adventurous. But something about this felt strange—and the strangeness wasn’t only from his nearness to losing control.
Something about Kelly felt… off. As if she was baiting him this way in spite of her mood rather than because of it.
But that wouldn’t make any sense at all.
