Page 39 of Feels Like the First Time
“An eight?” she laughed. “You haven’t even made it to first base.”
“I’ve got you alone on a rooftop, and managed to get you out of your shoes.” He grinned. “Nice toes, by the way.” He gently tapped her feet with his shoe. “My team color, I’m flattered.”
She looked down at her toes. “They’re red. I like red.”
“So do Blackhawk fans.”
Oh, for God’s sake.“It was the only color I had besides black.”
“My team’s other color,” he mused. “Something you want to tell me, sunshine?”
“Only that it’s hard to see the stars around your ego so scoot over.” She shooed him, but the big lug didn’t move an inch.
“That’s not what your toes say.” His voice was like sex as he looked down again, and it took everything she had not to wiggle them. “They say you want to hold my stick.”
“Colleen Hanover is downstairs and she’s wearing a red dress with black do-me pumps,” Ali said. “I bet she’d hold your stick.”
“No can do, I’m a one-woman man.”
Ali gave him a dry look. “Since when?”
“Since I got myself a girlfriend.” He took a sip. “Proper boyfriend code says I can only dream about my girlfriend, and that would be you”—he bumped her with his shoulder—“coveting my stick.”
She grabbed the bottle. “You’d better put those dreams to memory, because come midnight, this girlfriend turns back into your neighbor, and your stick is free again.”
“I already have a lifetime of dreams banked, sunshine.” His smile went wicked. “A few starting as far back as high school and just about every night for the past year.”
Ali choked, the hot whiskey burning her throat. His words stopping her heart. Then she reminded herself that this was Hawk being Hawk and she forced out a laugh, then offered him back the bottle. “Save the charm for the next girl. I’ve seen the full Hawk experience in action, and I’m not interested.”
Her body argued. Part of her heart did, too. She wanted the full Hawk experience, just for a night, to see what it would feel like to be with him, to have him see her as a desirable woman.
“Charm only works if it’s the truth, sunshine. And you know me better than to lie.” He took a big pull then leaned back on both of his palms and looked back out over the skyline of their little downtown.
The weight of his words fell heavy on the night’s air, and Ali’s confidence. She went from feeling free and giddy to extremely self-conscious.
Hawk had been nothing but a gentleman with her tonight, and maybe that was the problem. Under all the flirting and pampering, Ali feared, lay a whole lot of obligation. Maybe Hawk was just being Hawk and doing what he always did when her family imploded—tried to be the glue that held them together, helped them smooth things out.
“And what the hell is the full Hawk experience?” he said lightly, but she could tell she’d pushed a button. “You’ll have to explain it to me.”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Normally, when we hang out, I’m in my jeans and boots, never in a dress with fancy shoes eating finger foods that are inappropriate to eat with your fingers.”
“Dress. Jeans. It doesn’t matter. Lately all it takes is one look, and I can’t stop staring.”
She waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t, instead that easygoing charm of his slipped, and he went serious. Dead serious. And if that wasn’t enough to send heat racing through her body, his gaze locked on hers, steady and sure, and Ali also felt her body respond.
The longer he looked, the hotter she became, until it felt as if her body was on fire. Her heart was in her throat. And nothing seemed to exist except his words—and their connection.
“Shit,” he mumbled and took another long pull of Jack. He hissed a breath through his teeth and looked back out at the water. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“What, get a little hammered at your ex’s party?” she said. “I think it is expected, I mean Garth Brooks even has a song about it. So I don’t think anybody would judge you for letting loose. In fact, half the people down there would probably encourage you.”
“I wasn’t talking about the Jack,” Hawk murmured.
Ali looked over and found his gaze traveling slowly back up her bare legs, to her breasts, finally stopping on her lips. “Oh,” she whispered.
“Yeah, oh,” he said equally low, and she took some pride in the fact that his voice was rough and husky. “I came up here to think about how I wanted to end tonight. Then I thought about how every time I touched you tonight, you flinched, and I promised you nothing would change.”
“I didn’t flinch,” she defended, and Hawk lifted a brow. “Okay, maybe I flinched slightly, but your touch was so gentle and I’m ticklish.”
