Page 43 of Wild Rush
Chapter Fourteen
“Second Sunday in a row I’ve found you with that frowning face. What’s on your mind now?” Caitlyn squeezed into the booth opposite her.
“Jeez. What is this? Sunday confessional?” Reena laughed but the sound came out rough, edged with hysteria.
“Nothing better than confessing over a shot of Jameson,” Caitlyn said as Ailis put a bottle and two shot glasses on the table between them. “Thanks, Ailis.”
They stayed quiet while Caitlyn poured and they downed the amber liquid. Reena winced. God that burned.
Refilling their glasses, her friend waited her out. She’d always been able to do that. Get Reena to spill her secrets just by sitting quietly, ready to listen to whatever crisis had come into Reena’s life.
Needing the courage, she knocked back the second shot and shuddered through the burn, settling when the warmth hit her belly. “He asked me to go with him.”
“Rush?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I said no.”
“Why the hell would you do that? You’re in love with the guy.”
Reena’s gaze snapped up, collided with the blue eyes of the woman who had been her lifeline through so much in spite of their age gap. In spite of the fact she’d started out as Reena’s babysitter, a teenager taking care of a scared, orphaned little girl barely surviving the loss of her parents.
She trusted Caitlyn. More than she trusted herself, it seemed.
Reena thought she loved him. But having never had sex, she’d wondered if those emotions could be put down to the starry-eyed confusion of a virgin giving her heart to the guy who popped her cherry.
Heat flashed through her. God, had he popped it. He’d blown that thing apart with a load of C-4. It had been the single most spectacular thing to ever happen to her. Until he’d done it again and again and again—
“I’m going to assume that flushed look on your face means you’ve sunk deep into some super-hot memories of how much ‘love’ went on between the two of you.”
Reena glanced at the smirk on Caitlyn’s mouth and more heat burned her cheeks. “Sorry.”
“Oh, no. Don’t be sorry.Neverbe sorry about amazing sex.”
“How do you know it was amazing?”
“Other than the flushed face, we’ve got dilated pupils, short breaths and a pair of extra-perky boobs.” Caitlyn laughed when Reena crossed her arms over said perky.
“Do you really think I’m in love with him?” she asked, apprehension dropping her belly low.
“You don’t think you are?”
Reena shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never…”
“I get that he’s your first, and sometimes girls—women—get starry-eyed and confuse sex with love, but you’re not the type. You’re the most levelheaded woman I know. Mature beyond your years and smart. So very, very smart. Love is often blind and stupid, but take it from someone who’s been there, or thought she was a few times, you’re in love with Rush.”
“We only met last month.”
“It only takes a second to fall.”
“We don’t know each other. Not really.”
Caitlyn arched one eyebrow.
“Okay. Fine. We know enough about each other. I guess. Maybe.” Reena chewed her thumbnail. “But I live here.”
“So move.”
“I can’t—”
