Page 57 of New Orleans Rush

They made a game of it, playing Guess the Villain, listing why it had to be the brother or sister or shady waitress. Bea was usually right. “But the sister is being super helpful. It’s always the nice one.”

“That means if Mrs. Yarrow is killed, you’ll be the prime suspect.”

It wouldn’t be a stretch. Mrs. Yarrow lived next door and spent an inordinate amount of time tending her garden. While in hot pants. Sixty-year-old women shouldn’t wear hot pants. Mrs. Yarrow, in particular, shouldn’t use them to flirt with Huxley. “I may have the odd nefarious thought toward her, but it would be self-defense. Her garden attracts an abnormal number of bees.”

His face clouded. “Should we spike her spray-tan bottles with poison?”

“Nope. Tint them blue. That would teach her to keep such lovely flowers. And you’re going down on the brother call. You may as well add a point to my scoresheet now.”

Their scorekeeping mainly served Bea, who would dance around Huxley, waving the writing pad, rubbing her success in his face.

Unperturbed, he slung his arm over the back of the couch. His hand rested by her shoulder, and all thoughts of beating him vanished. Bea tried to follow the show, but Huxley’s hand was in her peripheral vision, close to her body. Her eyes strained from sneaking peeks. She didn’t even taunt him when the sister was exposed.

Huxley seemed distracted, too, barely glancing at the TV. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“For tonight.”

She angled toward him, away from the show. “But I didn’t do anything. You cooked. It’s your family. I’m just an interloper.”

“We haven’t had a family dinner in a while. They were here to pick up the Mustang, which means they showed up because you keyed my car. The jokes and general assholery were because of you, too. To make me look bad in the loving way brothers torment each other.” He fingered a lock of her hair, rolling the loose strands between his fingers. “Having you here makes everything more fun.”

She leaned farther back, hoping his busy fingers would graze her skin. Because…this. His admission. The contact. The touching. When she was with Huxley everything felt so incredibly right. “I’ve always been on the periphery of groups, friendly with everyone or the outcast, but not part of the inner circle. Being here, with you—I can’t describe how it makes me feel.”

Real.

Important.

Content.

“That makes me happier than you know.” He drew lazy circles on her shoulder, and shivers swept across her skin.

They didn’t talk again. Another episode aired. The TV flashed scenes of dead bodies and arid desert. They didn’t guess who shot whom or who was lying. Their gazes strayed from the screen and the space between their thighs diminished.

“How long have you had this couch?” she asked as she avoided a poky part.

He shifted with her, tugging her closer to his side. More contact. More him. He latched his arm firmly around her until she nestled under his chin. “Too long,” he said softly. “I’ve been meaning to replace it, but I helped Fox furnish his apartment, then I sent Axel to a Vegas conference. And there’s always theater expenses. I’ll get something soon.”

“Your brothers are lucky to have you.”

He shrugged and stroked her hair. For ten, twenty, thirty minutes, they breathed in time, nuzzling closer. She nosed the exposed skin above his collar, inhaling his manly scent. His fingers glided up and down her arm. They didn’t take things further, but there was an intimacy to the cuddling that felt incredibly good. And an unexpected thought hit her exposed nerves: What if this is too good to last?

God, she was tired of nurturing this fear, but what if Huxley wasn’t being honest with himself about the role poker played in his life?

He was an honorable man who valued family. He believed a promise was as binding as Axel’s straitjacket. He shouldered the responsibility of the theater to make his late father proud. He also read romance novels. The pastime may have begun as a guilty pleasure, or a how-to in the ways of women, but the way he’d fought to break her walls, earn her trust in a trial by fire, deny his desires to prove his worth—he was a romantic through and through. He wouldn’t hurt her on purpose.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do so accidentally.

She sneezed once. Twice.

“Bless you.” He leaned back, studying her. “Everything okay?”

“Perfect. Great.” It was great. He was great.

Get it together, Bea.

She flattened her hand on his abdomen. The solid shape of him grounded her and curbed her crazy. She reminded herself how good she’d felt around him recently, how in tune to each other they were. She focused on the heat of him against her and nothing else. His body was scalding through his Property of Starfleet T-shirt. A body she wanted to see. She often thought about the scars Della had mentioned, the hidden ones on his torso—where they were, what they looked like. What had happened the night his father died that had landed him in the hospital.