Chapter Three
This was such a mistake it wasn’t even funny. Erin crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Warren to tell her what her dare would be. This game had started them down the path all those years ago, so to start playing tonight, when she was feeling raw and vulnerable, was probably the worst idea she’d had in a long time.
But she’d already picked up the gauntlet he’d thrown down. Changing her mind now meant she’d lose, and all she seemed to have left these days was her pride. She couldn’t back down. Not now. Not until she’d won.
Maybe if I can do this tonight, I can finally start to get control of my life again. It could be a step in the right direction.
And maybe she was just looking for an excuse to get into some trouble with Warren Davis.
He grinned, that quick and easy expression that always meant trouble in the best way possible. She tried to ignore that one look from him could make her stomach erupt into a cloud of butterflies. Warren jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Flash the sheriff.”
Erin blinked. “Uh, what?”
“You heard me, Freckles.” He moved to the side and she saw the sheriff’s cruiser crawling down the street. It was still several blocks away, but if she was going to do the dare, she had to move quickly.
“You are such an asshole.” She shrugged out of her coat and shoved it at him, part of her wondering why the hell she was doing this. All she had to do was walk away. She was twenty-five goddamn years old—too old to be indulging in a pissing contest with a guy who was supposed to be ancient history. Erin stepped to the curb.
“And if you get arrested, you automatically lose.”
She shot a look over her shoulder. “Give me some credit. Sheriff Flannery might not be a geezer like Sheriff Jones was, but I’m not going to stand around waiting to get arrested.” She turned back in time to see the patrol car hit their block. It was now or never.
Bracing herself against the cold, she grabbed the bottom of her shirt and jerked it and her bra up to her neck as the headlights hit her body. Her breasts instantly broke out in goose bumps and her nipples pebbled as the cold seared straight to her bones. She held her breath for half a second, and then jerked her clothes back into place.
Right about the same time that the patrol car let loose a chirp that evolved into sirens, the blue and red lights on the roof flashing.
Warren grabbed her arm. “Run!”
“You run.” She snatched her coat out of his arms and took off, ducking down the alley between the coffee shop and the post office, her boots hitting the ground in a rhythm that matched Warren’s half a second behind her.
Erin slid around the corner and kept going, crossing Second Street and heading for the residential area behind it. She cut across two front lawns and dived behind the huge lilac bushes Miss Nora kept in her front yard, breathing hard. The mass of thin branches and the snow covering them should be more than enough to hide them. She hoped. Then Warren was there, crowding against her, too close and somehow not close enough. She shivered, refusing to look at him because she feared what he’d see on her face.
Adrenaline. That’s all this is.
Right. She’d just run from a cop. Erin huffed out a laugh as the patrol car cruised past them, the sirens now silent. That was close. Sheriff Flannery was a pretty decent guy, so she doubted he’d try too hard to find her—especially since no one else was subject to her public nudity—but her heart still raced from the short chase.
Beside her, Warren chuckled. “Just like old times, huh?”
Just like old times and yet completely different. They weren’t kids anymore. He was a Marine now, and she was a failed Broadway actress. The reminder left her colder than the snow beneath her.
Desperate to reclaim the free feeling that had just left her, she said, “Truth or dare?”
“You know me well enough to know that.” His smile was a flash of white teeth in the shadows. “Dare.”
“Kiss me.” The words were out before she could think better of them, before she could take them back to protect herself. This was why you stopped the fling with him. He makes you forget yourself. Knowing that was all well and good in the warm light of day. Right now, huddled behind a bush in Miss Nora’s front yard, she didn’t care about any of it.
All she cared about tonight was forgetting. Reality would still be there tomorrow, no matter how much she wanted to escape it. Warren offered a chance to slip into a fantasy of “what if?” for a little while. It wouldn’t ultimately change anything between them. It never did. But that didn’t matter in this moment.
Warren’s cold hand at the back of her neck startled her out of her mental spiral. His breath warmed her lips a second before his mouth took hers. Considering their current location, the kiss should have been uncomfortable and awkward, but apparently he hadn’t gotten the memo.
He nipped her bottom lip, using her moan to gain access to her mouth. They hadn’t so much as touched in over a year, but that didn’t seem to matter with his tongue stroking along hers in that heady way. The intervening time disappeared just like it always had in the past, and suddenly she was nineteen again, her body responding and her hormones sweeping away what little common sense she could call her own.
Erin grabbed the front of his coat, needing to be closer, to feel skin against skin, to follow through on the promise of his mouth on hers. She barely registered Warren moving back until he created some actual distance between them. “Damn, Freckles, that was fun.”
Fun… It took her brain far too long to catch up. Just a kiss, you idiot. “Uh…” She shook her head, trying to focus. “I don’t… Give me a second.”
“You have a second.” He rose and offered her his hand. “Let’s get out of here before Miss Nora gets back.”
The fact that the kiss obviously hadn’t affected him the same way it had her doused the last of the fuzziness in her head. She ignored his outstretched hand and shoved to her feet. As much as part of her wanted to just walk away, she’d already committed to seeing this through.
And he was right—being here when Miss Nora got back was a mistake. The woman was right at the center of the Wellingford gossip mill, and what she knew, the rest of the town would inside of twelve hours.
The very last thing Erin needed was for her parents—or, worse, her brother—to start asking uncomfortable questions about why she was running around at all hours of the night with one Warren Davis. Mom would be so thrilled at the chance of seeing me married off to become someone else’s problem.
That wasn’t fair. Her parents loved her dearly. It wasn’t their fault she’d always been a fish out of water when it came to the rest of her family. Aside from her mom’s temporary, pregnancy-induced insanity when it came to naming Erin, they’d been a solid pillar for her entire life. And Aaron was as steady as time itself. The craziest thing he’d ever done was go off and join the Army, and he’d come right back to Wellingford after his time was served.
Then there was Erin. The wild child. The one with drama in her blood. The one who didn’t fit in.
It had been true when she was a kid, and it was just as true now. Her parents tried. Good lord, they tried. But they just didn’t get her any more than she got them. To them, it was simple—things had gone south in New York, which was a sign that it was time for her to come home and settle down.
Settle down.
It sounded like a death sentence from where Erin was sitting.
What am I going to do? The only thing I ever wanted was to be a Broadway actress. Do I go back to New York and start over? Or do I… What? Stay here, get married, get knocked up, and join the PTA?
There had to be some middle ground between the two. She just had to find it.
She was so wrapped up in the misery going on inside her head, she didn’t pay attention where they were going until she took a step and sank into snow up to her knees. Erin looked around, frowning. They’d hit the edge of town. There was nothing out here but trees and the occasional farm.
Which apparently was where they were headed.
Warren dragged her across the small field and into the barn situated away from the road. It was slow going through the knee-deep snow, even with him breaking a path for her to follow. She jerked her hand out of his—when had he taken her hand?—and looked around. “The Joneses’ old barn? Really?” she turned back to ask, and inhaled sharply when she found him a mere breath away. This close, she could smell the winter on his skin, which should have been expected since they’d just been traipsing around in the snow, but somehow managed to make her toes curl in her boots all the same. “I—”
He nudged her over to a workbench against the far wall—a grand total of five steps away. It wasn’t as cold as it was outside, but her breath still ghosted the air in front of her. “I really don’t think Sheriff Flannery is still looking for us.”
“Probably not.” He guided her to sit on the bench.
Erin looked around. “Since we’re on the same page, why are we hiding in the Joneses’ old barn? I know Wellingford is pretty countrified but this is ridiculous.” They’d built a bigger, newer barn on the other side of their property last year, so this one was only being used for extra storage and was guaranteed to be deserted, but that didn’t mean she wanted to camp out in it. She wanted to keep moving, to get back into town and back to their game. The faster he dealt out another dare to her, the faster she could win and move on with her life.
He went to his knees in front of her, his big body sliding between her thighs and spreading her legs. “I still have my dare to complete.”
“Uh, no, you don’t. You completed it back in Miss Nora’s front yard.” She pointed even as hurt blossomed in her chest. That kiss had been freaking amazing and he was acting like it hadn’t happened at all.
He shot her a look that stole her breath, his dark eyes so heated it was a wonder she didn’t melt into a puddle at his feet. “That wasn’t a kiss.”
“I was there. Pretty sure it was a kiss.”
He pulled off one of her boots and then the other, and she was so shocked that she let him. Warren ran his hands up her legs, making her wish she’d worn something flimsier than her favorite pair of jeans. “I don’t know who you’ve been kissing over the last year, but they obviously haven’t been doing it properly.”
She bit her lip when his chilled fingers brushed the top of her jeans, slipping beneath her shirt to stroke along her skin. Why was she trying to argue her way out of this…whatever it was? “I’ve been kissed plenty fine in the last year.”
“No, you haven’t.” He abruptly tightened his grip and jerked her to the very edge of the bench.
Her breath stalled out, and she could only watch as he unbuttoned her jeans and worked them down her legs, never taking his gaze from her face. Erin licked her lips. “How would you know?”
“Because, Freckles, you haven’t been kissed by me.”