Shit… didn’t expect her to run that fast.
“I’m sorry… I gotta go,” I tell Mallory as I spin toward the door.
She latches onto my arm, and her eyes narrow at me. “What the hell, Tenn?”
“I’m really sorry,” I mutter as I pull my arm away and start weaving my way through the crowd in pursuit of Casey. I’ve lost sight of her so I pick up my pace, actually bumping shoulders with a few people.
When I burst out the door, I see nothing but cars in the parking lot. I look left, then right, and see a flash of golden hair bouncing as Casey runs toward her Jeep. Thankfully, my legs are longer than hers are and I manage to catch her just as she’s reaching for her door handle.
My hand latches on to her elbow. “Wait a minute, Goldie. Where are you going?”
“Home,” she says as she tries to jerk herself from my grasp, so I tighten my grip.
“Just wait,” I tell her as I turn her to face me.
Rather than pull away from me again, she surprisingly steps into me and lifts up on her tiptoes, her lip curled in a snarl. “Don’t ask, Tenn. I’m not telling you another fucking thing about him.”
She looks like a wildcat, eyes all wide and feral, her hair streaming over her shoulders in messy disarray, cheeks flushed red. I can tell there will be no reasoning with her, so I do the next best thing by taking her shoulders and pulling her closer to me. I slam my mouth onto hers and kiss the fuck out of her.
Casey struggles for all of two seconds, and then her arms are wrapped around my neck and she’s kissing me back.
Desperately.
Her soft body melts into mine, and lust shoots down to my dick when she moans softly into my mouth.
Only three seconds away from pushing her up against her Jeep and fucking her in the parking lot, I pull away. Her chest is rapidly rising and falling and her eyes are filled with confusion. I bring a hand to the side of her face and cup it, running my thumb over the modelesque swell of her cheekbone.
“I mean it,” she says in warning, her eyes looking like a caged animal again. “I won’t talk about him.”
“We don’t have to,” I assure her with a reassuring smile. “But let’s get out of here… go get a cup of coffee or something. We can talk about something else.”
“Like what?” she asks suspiciously.
Leaning in, I kiss her on the forehead and don’t miss the subtle sigh that yields from her. Sensing her need for something normal to ground her, I grab Casey’s hand and start pulling her toward my motorcycle. “It’s a nice night. We can talk about the weather if you want to.”
I sip at my coffee and look around the diner. It’s nearly empty, and the sign on the front says they close at nine PM. Plenty of time for us to sit for a bit and talk.
“Me and my girlfriends do breakfast here every Monday,” Casey says out of the blue, and my gaze slides back to her. It’s the first thing she’s said since we left the bar.
“Oh, yeah? What are they like?”
Tenderness morphs Casey’s face and her eyes go soft, telling me what I’ve suspected from the start… that she has a big heart. “Well… there’s my best friend since I was a kid…. Gabby. She’s engaged to my brother, Hunter.”
“He’s the one that owns The Last Call, right?”
“Yup. And then there’s Alyssa. She’s engaged to my brother Brody, who is Hunter’s twin.”
“And he’s the one that spent some time in prison?” I ask.
Casey’s eyebrows rise in question, so I supply her before she can ask. “Kyle told me. I guess Andrea filled him in on the whole group.”
“Did she tell him that Brody went away for a crime he didn’t commit?”
Now it’s my turn for my eyebrows to rise. “No. Guess she didn’t tell him that piece of info.”
Casey shrugs her shoulders. “It’s not something that people know outside of our family and small group of friends. Andrea probably thought that was too personal to share.”
I don’t tell her that Andrea apparently shared a bit of personal information about Casey… like her penchant for wealthy men. It’s not like Andrea told Kyle anything sordid… just that Casey only dated the rich elite, that she was surprised she agreed to have dinner with me, and that she never had a long-term relationship, seeming to just bounce from guy to guy. I sort of drew my own conclusions from that.
“Then there’s Savannah, who used to be my roommate, who is with Gavin, who is this really big-time author, and well, you know Andrea. That’s my group of girls,” Casey says vaguely.
I want to ask her more about Brody, and I definitely want to hear more about her friends because I’d bet my Harley they’re nothing like Casey since they’re all in committed relationships. But I don’t, because I want to ask her about something else. I promised not to ask her anything more about Jeff, but I’m insanely curious about why she targets just rich men.
And I know that the best way to get information is to share information.
“I have a daughter,” I tell her abruptly.
I’m completely blown away when Casey’s eyes soften even further, and she gets the sweetest smile on her face that pops out two dimples. “You do?” she asks with delighted surprise.
I grin and nod. “Her name’s Zoey and she just turned fourteen. Her mom—my ex-wife—relocated to Raleigh a few months ago. That’s the reason I rode out here with Kyle… to see Zoey.”