His whole face lights up. “Yeah.”
I can’t help but grin. “Good on you.”
Drew shrugs as though it’s nothing, but he isn’t fooling me. Happiness bounces around him, a bubbly fizz in the dark night. “I did my part.” His gaze roams down my body. “Nice outfit, Jones.”
I’m still in my catering clothes, a white oxford shirt and black knee length skirt. And stupid ballerina flats. I probably look all of twelve.
“You have your uniform,” I say. “I have mine. Why are you smiling like that?” There’s a gleam in his eyes that’s so dirty it makes my heart skip a beat.
“I’m picturing you in my uniform.”
“Because those massive shoulder pads would look sooo sexy.” I make a face.
His tongue runs over the edge of his teeth. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of my jersey. God, you’d look hot in my jersey.”
“A jock’s wet dream, I suppose?” I quip, but my breath is a little too fast now. It’s as if I can feel the silky texture of Drew’s big jersey sliding over my bare skin.
“You bet, baby.”
“God.” I roll my eyes and shake my head.
He’s laughing again, a low, rolling sound that warms me inside. Suddenly we’re closer, less than a foot apart. I don’t know if he moved or if I did. I can’t think. He’s so close that heat surges between my legs, and my br**sts grow heavy. I’m surrounded by Drew. Again.
“I’ve missed you.” His voice is soft, that special tone that I’ve come to think of as mine. A low intimate sound that fills the space between us. Like we’re in our own world. All I can think about is the last time he used that voice on me. I want to kiss you, Anna.
And by the way he’s looking at me, his focus going to my lips and his brows drawing tight with intent, I’m guessing he’s thinking about that too. He hasn’t yet touched me, but his strong body leans closer to mine.
A gust of icy wind rushes over the lot, and I shiver. “I don’t know how you can stand it out here without a coat,” I babble. “Aren’t you cold?”
Drew reaches out and grasps the lapels of my secondhand pea coat that’s hanging open to the breeze. His touch is so gentle as he pulls the ends together, that I stand there, throat closed, mouth dry.
“I just played football for four hours.” He doesn’t let my coat go, but holds it, his thumbs slowly rubbing over the wool, his forearms an inch away from my br**sts. “If I could get away with it, I wouldn’t be wearing a shirt at all.”
“That would…”—Be wonderful? Yes, please? With sugar on top?—“give the campus police something to talk about over donuts in the morning.”
“Mmm,” he agrees with a lazy rumble, while he tugs just the slightest bit on my coat. I drift closer and his voice drops to a murmur. “The press would have a ball. Drew Baylor shocks all by revealing his ni**les.”
He shouldn’t be allowed to say words like ‘nipples’ in public. As if called, mine instantly perk up. His lashes lower, and I know he’s noticed my agitation. I hear his slow inhale.
A steady throb joins the heat between my legs. My chest is so tight now that when he dips his head to graze his lips across my ear, I can’t breathe.
“Did you miss me, Anna?” he whispers.
My hands find their way to his chest, and I press my palms against the dense muscles there. He smells clean, like the shower gel he uses and, underneath it, his natural scent. It’s so familiar to me now I can no longer describe it. I only know I want to draw it deep into my lungs. I want to close my eyes and lean into him. But I keep them open and focus on the golden skin of his throat.
I love that part of his body, the vulnerability of his sensitive skin. I love the little hollows just above his collarbones where his neck dips down to meet his shoulders, and I know that if I press my mouth to that tender spot and suckle it, he’ll give me a helpless, near whimper of sound that he always does when I kiss him there. I almost whimper myself. Did I miss him?
“Yes.”
I can feel him smile against my cheek. “Good.” The tips of his fingers graze under my jaw, just over my racing pulse.
“Is this your car?” I blurt out. Smooth. Either Drew likes to lean on strangers’ cars or I’m the idiot who’s stating the obvious.
Drew draws back a little and glances at it. “Yep.”
“It’s gorgeous.” I’m a wimp. Taking the coward’s way out of Dodge.
His tilted smile is wry. He knows I’m trying to distract him, and it clearly amuses him. But he plays along. Drew turns and lovingly runs his palm over the glossy hood of the car. “This here is Little Red.”
“Little Red,” I repeat. It makes me think of what he called me the first time we talked: Big Red. The moment I decided to hate him. And I wonder how it is that I’m here now. How has this happened? Me wanting him more than my next breath. Me needing him more than I’ve ever needed anyone.
Perhaps he feels my tension, because he eyes me carefully. “It’s a term of affection, you know,” he says in a low voice. “Anyway, I didn’t name her.”
“Her?”
“All cars are ladies, Jones.” He winks. And it ought to be cheesy, winking like that, but it’s not. It makes me want to kiss his cheek. He’s not only sexy, he’s f**king adorable. And he’s completely ignorant of my moony expression because he’s back to stroking his car. “She’s a 1971 Chevy Camaro Z28.” His expression dims a little, becoming almost bittersweet. “She was my dad’s. He got her at a junkyard and restored her from the frame out.”