Thank God.
Chapter One
“Oh, Nolan’s here!” Annabelle waved at someone behind Randi.
Randi’s heart thudded and she hunkered down over her margarita, taking a long pull on the straw.
Dammit.
It had been four months since she’d seen Nolan. And kissed him. And basically asked him to take her to bed.
And been turned down.
She’d known the sabbatical wouldn’t last. Nolan came to Quinn on a fairly regular basis from his big-shot city life in San Antonio. But she’d loved every Nolan-free/ humiliation-free weekend since Coach’s party.
“Oh, he’s coming over,” Annabelle said with a grin.
Of course he was.
Randi sucked harder on her straw.
“Hey, Annabelle.”
His voice sounded deeper. Which was completely stupid. But there was something about knowing what a great kisser he was that made her attribute other things to him that she found hot. Deep voices, big hands, nice asses. Those kinds of things.
“Hi, Nolan,” Annabelle said. “You back for the weekend?”
“I’m back for a week or so, actually,” he said. “Doing some follow-up stuff for the book.”
A week. Randi bit back a groan. She was going to have to avoid him or act normal around him—and not like she was dying of embarrassment over how she’d thrown herself at him—for a week? That was going to be tough. Randi didn’t get embarrassed. Until she was around Nolan Winters.
The stupid party hadn’t been the first time. It seemed every time they tried to have a one-on-one conversation, she ended up feeling like an uneducated, silly, have-to-work-hard-for-a-C student. Because that’s always what she had been. But Nolan was the only one that made her feel that way. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do it on purpose. But she just wasn’t able to hold her own with a near-genius who was into politics and world events and history.
If he’d wanted to talk transmissions and drag racing and country music, she would have been fine. But he didn’t.
This damned margarita was taking its time, Randi thought. She could use a little buzz here.
“Hey, Randi.”
In spite of everything, his voice made something low and deep tighten inside of her. She lifted her head. She was polite, if nothing else. “Hey, Nolan.”
“I think you owe me a dance.”
She blinked at him. A dance. Because they hadn’t danced at Coach’s party. She’d been too busy putting her tongue down his throat and begging him to have sex with her. Basically.
“Sorry, I’ve probably had too much tequila.”
The words were out before she really thought about them. But hey, it washimwho had decided she’d had too much of the cactus nectar the last time they’d been together. Still, Randi acknowledged that she had trouble controlling her sassiness sometimes. That sassiness had covered up many uncomfortable, self-conscious moments for her over the years and was definitely her fallback.
But instead of being offended, Nolan’s mouth curled up into a smile. A sexy smile, if she was being honest.
“I kind of like it when you’ve had too much tequila.”
So he did know what she was talking about. She lifted an eyebrow. “That’s not how I remember it.”
“Come dance and I’ll remind you.”
His hands had seemed big when they’d been on her ass. She remembered that part. And she loved big hands. And guys who would grip her hips or ass with those hands when they were making out.
