If Tessie suspected that Lawson was her dad, that is. Eve had told her that Kellan wasn’t her father, so Tessie might have found out about Lawson and her being high school sweethearts and could have pieced the truth together.
Eve glanced around, considering if this was a good time for her to spill all to Lawson. It wasn’t. There was a couple kissing and groping each other at the back of the building. Plus, someone else could come walking out at any second.
Maybe they could talk in her car?
But Eve nixed that, too, because it was best if Lawson didn’t have his inevitable meltdown in a public place with his cousins and his ex-girlfriend inside.
“Tessie thinks you and I are together...or something,” Lawson added a moment later.
Not together, but the or something was true. The air was zinging again, and Eve didn’t think it was because there was any lightning nearby. Nope. These sparks were all caused by Lawson.
“She came out and said that?” Eve asked. “Or was that just a feeling you got?” Because if it was a feeling, she could dismiss it.
“She came out and said it,” Lawson stated.
So, no dismissal, but it did make her wonder why Tessie would be concerned about who she was or wasn’t seeing. “Did she say anything else?” Maybe ask about their shared past?
“She wanted to know why I went to Austin to see her.”
Oh, that. Eve certainly hadn’t forgotten about the visit. “How did she know you’d been there? And for that matter, how’d she get your number?”
“She didn’t say, but she probably got it from Belle. She mentioned that Belle had called her a time or two. I didn’t tell anyone I’d gone to her sorority house in Austin, but Belle might have heard about it somehow.”
“Small-town gossip,” Eve muttered.
Lawson nodded. “More efficient than tabloids or paparazzi. Faster, too.” He looked up at the awning and at the alley that led to the back. “We made out here once after a school dance.”
Eve didn’t need a glance to confirm it, but they had indeed done that. It was one of the rare times when the Longhorn had closed the bar so the teenagers could have a dance. Lawson and she had been barely seventeen, and just like the couple at the back of the bar, there’d been groping and kissing involved. Perhaps even one of those hand slides down into his jeans since that was around the time they’d become full-blown lovers.
“Yes. That happened in a lot of different places,” she admitted. “I can’t drive by the high school bleachers without blushing.”
He smiled, just a little, but she didn’t think it was from humor, and she thought he was about to let her know that this chat was over and that it was time for him to go. But that didn’t happen.
“This staying away from each other isn’t working for me,” he said, his voice a low easy drawl. If foreplay had a voice, that’s how it would sound. “How about you?”
The drawl, the question and the look he gave her would have caused chrome to melt. “No.”
It was the truth, but she winced. She shouldn’t be admitting stuff like that. She shouldn’t be giving him the look, either. The look that was almost certainly begging him to launch her on the path to a much-needed orgasm.
“No,” he repeated.
He drawled that, too, and she didn’t think he was changing his mind about what he’d said. The alley didn’t have the best lighting, just a yellowish bulb above the door, but it was more than enough for her to see his attention lower to her mouth. Then to her breasts.
Then lower.
The look he was giving her seemed very familiar. “Are you playing the game we used to play?” she asked.
He didn’t ask what game? Which meant they were likely playing it. It was one they’d started about the same time they’d made out in this alley. Long, lingering looks at places on each other’s bodies that they wanted to touch or kiss. Followed by the question—touch, lick or kiss?
It was their sexed-up version of “Truth or Dare?”
The game had gotten her into trouble once when she’d glanced down at Lawson’s man parts just as he’d blurted out “lick.” Until then “lick” had usually been reserved for necks, earlobes and nipples. They’d been in his truck at the time and parked on the back of his family’s property so they had some privacy. But, alas, her seventeen-year-old skill set had failed her, and he’d gotten one short lick instead of what he’d been expecting. A few minutes after that, they’d had sex, so it probably wasn’t a huge disappointment.
“It was a fun game,” she said. There was too much breath in her voice, and the pulse on her throat was starting to throb. Actually, several parts of her were throbbing. “But this isn’t the best place to play it.”
She sounded hesitant, and her brain was, but the rest of her was nudging her to go for anything, including but not limited to sex against the wall.
“Probably not.” His words agreed with her, but the look he gave her didn’t. He dropped his gaze to that runaway pulse on her throat.
“Kiss,” she blurted out, and she might have waved it off if Lawson hadn’t moved in and put his mouth there.
Oh, my. That was like flipping on a switch. A hot, needy one. It always had been, and Lawson had been the one who’d discovered that ultrasensitive spot on her. Of course, he’d discovered most of her spots.
“You’re right,” he whispered, his warm breath hitting against her neck in the very area he’d just kissed. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
Yes, that was the only thing wrong about it. Everything else was so right. She leaned back to tell him something that she hoped would sound sensible, but she glanced at his mouth first.
“Touch,” he said. Obviously, they were still playing the game, so maybe sensibility could wait for a few more seconds. Interesting, though, that he hadn’t gone for the obvious—kiss.
She wet her index finger with her tongue and gave him her own version of touching. Eve slid her finger over his top lip. Then his bottom. And while it was fun, it soon wasn’t nearly enough. She upped the touching by grabbing on to a fistful of his shirt, snapping him to her and kissing him.
It was as if the floodgates opened. Hot, mind-blowing floodgates that made her want to touch, kiss and lick at the same time. And she might have done all three, too, if Lawson hadn’t jerked away from her.
That’s when she saw the person coming up the alley from the Main Street sidewalk. Because her heartbeat was drumming in her ears, Eve hadn’t heard their visitor approaching, but she had no trouble hearing what she said.
“Mom?” Tessie called out. “Is that you?”
And her daughter came walking straight toward her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FOR JUST A split second, Tessie thought that maybe she’d stepped onto a set where Eve Cooper and another actor were playing out a scene. But nope. There were no cameras, no lighting. No crew. Only the strange thing she’d just witnessed.