Read Icing on the Cake (Close to Home) for Free Online

ringing constantly.”
    “You could mute it.” He turned and gave her a naughty wink. “Problem solved.” The words of a man determined to get her to his bed, yet he’d already altered course.
    Swooping in to break her free when she needed to get away from everybody. Keeping her company without pushing her to talk, or to do anything. Taking her home without batting an eye at her one-eighty in the hot-and-heavy department. Apparently the “good guy” gene ran strong in the Lawler family.
    She turned sideways on her seat to better face him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why don’t you have a wife, or a steady girlfriend, at least?”
    The question elicited an amused snort from the hunky driver. “Is there a right way to take a comment that starts with ‘don’t take this the wrong way’?”
    “Good point. Okay, so you’re hot, you seem nice enough, and you have a wicked car that’s almost as cool as mine.” She paused for another grunt-like laugh from the driver’s side of the vehicle. “You’re a cop, which most women seem to lose their ever-loving minds over. But you’re older than Conn, meaning you’re nearing the end of your peak years, and you’re still unattached. I guess the real question is—what’s wrong with you?”
    “Oh man. Glad I didn’t take your original question the wrong way .” He slowed for a corner, the simple motion of turning the steering wheel causing his muscles to flex and the darkly inked mermaid decorating his forearm to dance. Once they’d hit cruising speed outside of town, he looked over at her. “I don’t want a permanent relationship. And I’m not nearing the end of my peak years, a fact I would have demonstrated in a variety of ways if you hadn’t chickened out on going to my hotel room.”
    She sucked in a loud, sharp breath. “I did not chicken out.”
    One arm casually resting atop the steering wheel, he shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
    Totally goading her, but she’d be damned if she’d let him label her as wimpy poultry. Not even fleetingly. “I don’t chicken out. Ever.”
    That earned her another raised eyebrow. “You sure do throw the ‘never’ and ‘ever’ around a lot.”
    “Because they’re justified.”
    “Fearless and scared of nothing,” he said while turning down her parents’ laneway. “Claims like that require substantiation, troublemaker. Good thing we’ve got all weekend.”
    More of the adversarial flirting that’d sparked between them from the get-go. Seconds stretched into thick silence. Gravel crunched beneath the Trans Am’s tires, the sole sound in the car as they rolled to a stop near the garage. She should have one-upped him with a good comeback immediately, but no witty words came to mind. Not a single one.
    Especially not once the woodpile entered her line of sight.
    God, she could still picture it, as if it’d happened yesterday. The scream that’d brought her running from the swing set. Peter lying on the ground in a pool of blood as more gushed from a massive gash in his upper leg.
    Fearless—yes, she’d take that label. Proudly. But scared of nothing? Curtis couldn’t be more wrong.
    “Hey.” He caught her wrist before she could slip from the parked car. Instead of a firm, dominant grip, his fingers coasted over her palm to twine with hers. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    Was this guy for real? She doubted he knew about the chainsaw incident all those years ago, but to mention ghosts? Surely he knew about her first set of parents. Everybody knew.
    Another piece of her heart folded in on itself. Amazing anything remained of it after eighteen years, but in the short time she’d known him, he’d found a tender spot. She had to guard the few that remained. From anybody and everybody who could hurt her. Starting now.
    She met his waiting eyes—and damn, they were nice eyes—and summoned her hardest glare. “You’re either a dick, an idiot, or clueless. Regardless of which