The dice flew across the board.
“You win, you win!” Grandma clapped her hands. “Well done, kids!”
But Kacey didn’t look at the board. She didn’t look at Grandma. Her eyes were still trained on Travis’s lips. Damn him.
To his credit he didn’t smirk, nor did he pull his gaze away. They simply sat staring at one another, each breathing raggedly.
“We’ll just be going then,” Grandma announced.
Kacey snapped out of her haze. “Going? But Grandma you live here.”
“I do,” Grandma confirmed, helping Mr. Casbon to his feet. “But my lover is the boy next door, so I’ll just be walking over there with him.”
“What are your intentions with my grandmother?” Travis asked, entering into the conversation.
Mr. Casbon smirked. “I’m gonna make an honest woman out of her.”
Travis laughed. “That’s all I ask.” He threw his hands up in the air in surrender.
They disappeared out the door, leaving Kacey and Travis and the board game.
The silence was deafening.
Chapter Twenty-two
Would they never get along?
As if answering that question, Kacey blew the hair away from her face and glared at him. “You gonna help me clean up the mess or what?”
“Hmm, let me think.” He leaned back in his chair. “Help you clean up the game or watch you bend over and do it yourself. Tough decision.”
“You. Are. An. A—”
“Hey now.” Travis slowly rose from the chair and sauntered over to the card table. “Do you think we can go an entire conversation without calling each other names?”
“Yes,” she said tightly.
She was horrible at masking her emotions, and she was obviously upset. “What’s up, Kace? You’re not yourself.”
She snorted. “How would you know?”
“I’ve spent more time with you than Jake this weekend. I think I can tell when you’re pissed, especially considering you’ve been straightening that stack of money for the past five minutes.”
Her hand froze over the money. She collapsed in the chair.
He wasn’t sure if he should scoop her up in his arms and kiss away her anger or just have it out right then and there.
“I want to punch you,” she said lightly, as if she was commenting on the color of the carpet.
“Okay…” he drawled “Now?”
“Now’s good.”
She made a lunge for him and slugged him in the shoulder. His balance was off, making him fall to the ground with a loud grunt.
Kacey stayed on top of him, clearly unaware of how much he wanted to rip her clothes from her body and have his way with her on the card table.
“You were an ugly bully when I was little.” She punched him in the arm again. “And then you have the audacity to grow up handsome?”
Oh God, she was finally losing her mind. He had successfully pushed her off the edge.
“How dare you be anything but unattractive!” She pinched his arm.
He howled with pain. “What do you want me to do?”
“Apologize,” she ground out.
“For what?”
“For—” She looked down at her hands and whispered, “For saying I don’t matter.”
Travis groaned and put his hands over his face. “You heard that?”
Kacey nodded, still straddling him. She looked down and flashed him a smile. “It’s not a big deal. I just wanted you to suffer a bit.”
“Kace, look.” He grabbed her arms. “You matter, you know you do. If you didn’t matter…”
He couldn’t do it.
What was stopping him?
“If you didn’t matter,” he repeated. “Then why would I waste all this time picking on you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I guess that’s the closest I’m going to come to an apology, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely.” He grinned.
“At least I got a few swings in,” she muttered, peeling herself away from him, even though his body begged her to stay.
“Yes, you did.” He got to his feet. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll wake up with a few bruises you can push tomorrow morning.”
“One can only hope.” She held out her hand. “Truce?”
Hell no. No truce, his body screamed at him; instead, like an idiot he shook her hand. Friends. He could do friends. He was an adult after all.
Kacey smiled and bent over to grab the paper money off the floor.
His eyes focused in on her butt.
So maybe he was a fifteen-year-old stuck in an adult’s body. It was alarming how fast he was turned on by just looking at her.
“Um, Kace? Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll clean up. I probably deserve it after saying you don’t matter.”
“True.” She winked, then dropped the money back onto the floor allowing it to scatter so he’d have to gather it again.
“Mature.” He nodded his head.
“Always.” She bounced off.
Geez, she had a lot of energy for…
Oh crap. He forgot.
He’d been so mad that she was flirting with Jake and not paying attention to him he’d made her tea caffeinated. And then she had driven him so insane the next pot he’d made was the same.
He had a very sneaking suspicion that the truce was about to be over.
“Well, that was short-lived,” he muttered as he gathered the game pieces and began throwing them in the box.
By the time the game was cleaned up, it was nearing 1:00 a.m. Tired, he sluggishly walked to the new wing of the house and entered the master bedroom.
Everything seemed unfamiliar. Kacey was in his room, which was technically the guest room, and he was in this monstrous master suite with nothing but the crickets chirping outside to keep him company.
How, in two days, had he made such a mess of things?
His mind was a swirl of confusion. First Kacey, then Grandma acting as if she hadn’t had any mini-strokes in the past few months, and now Jake acting nice. He could handle Jake being an ass, but when he was nice it seemed so forced and fake. He didn’t want Kacey falling for it.
But how couldn’t she?
Jake was too damn good at being charismatic.
Travis sat on the bed and groaned into his hands. Kacey was an obsession, one he couldn’t seem to get over no matter how many years spanned between seeing one another.
One minute she seemed irritated with him; the next, he could almost swear she wanted him to kiss her.
Which probably meant his mind was playing tricks on him. The last time they kissed she admitted to being semi-drunk, which didn’t bode well for his confidence that she wanted to repeat the act.
Cursing, he went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth then peeled off his clothes and jumped into bed.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Rat bastard!” Kacey punched the pillow with her fist. “Of course the tea wasn’t decaf, you idiot.” She cursed herself and threw her legs over the bed.
With a grunt she opened the door to the room and padded down the hall to the new wing of the house.
I will not allow myself to get creeped-out by the weird sculptures, she chanted over and over again as she got farther into the new wing. Travis was the only one staying in this section of the house. Which, on one end of things, was good; it meant she didn’t have to see him as often, considering he had separate entrances to and from the giant estate. Not that it mattered. She had spent nearly every waking moment with the man.
On the other hand, it also meant that when she had to go searching for him at 2:00 a.m., she had to bypass an actual gallery of masks that in her opinion, could suddenly burst to life at any minute.
She finally reached the end of the hallway where two double doors resided. The master suite.
I’m going to castrate him. “Travis!” She pounded the door. “I know you’re in there! Come out here and fight me like a man!”
No answer.
“Son of a—”
“What the hell, Kace? Do you know what times it is?” Travis opened the door just as she was about to curse him into the fiery hole he crawled out of.
Words, however, would not flow out of her slack-jawed mouth. The man was nak*d — well, not entirely. He was wearing short boxer briefs that did nothing to hide the strong muscles plunging into his—
Truly he was sin incarnate. Big shock there.
“You!” She pushed his chiseled chest and backed him up into the room, slamming the door behind her. “You and your trickery are not welcome, Travis Thomas Titus!”
“Whoa, easy now, don’t go dropping my full name like that. Things can’t be that bad.” He pushed his curly golden-brown hair away from his face and yawned. “Now, can you please tell me what I did so I can go back to sleep? Some of us don’t stay up all hours of the night contemplating ways to torture others.”
“The tea…” Kacey pushed him again. “…was not decaf!”
A grin broke out on Travis’s face. “Oh?”
Kacey reached for his shoulders but he was too fast, throwing her on her back on his very comfortable bed and hovering over her. Not good. Oh God above, he was warm and, Don’t look, Kacey. Just don’t look.
“Kace, why are your eyes closed? Come on, open them, and fight me like a man.” He winked and leaned in close enough to brush a kiss across her lips.
To her ultimate shame she leaned forward expectantly.
“Sorry about the tea, but I do have a reputation to protect. And you did promise never to tell anyone about the bunny I used to sleep with, as well as everything else you laid out on the table tonight.”
“It slipped!”
“We took a blood oath!” he argued, his warm breath sending chills down her neck. “And I wanted revenge.”
“Fine!” Her teeth clenched together in annoyance. “But now you will have to suffer the consequences.”
“I tremble with fear.” Travis pushed away from her and dove under the covers. “Hey, can you grab the lights when you leave?”
Maniacal laughter erupted from her lips. Yup, definitely running on no sleep. “I’m not leaving.”
“Normally when a scantily clad woman says that, and she’s this close to my bed, it means I’m about to get laid. But judging from the look on your face, I’m going to guess you’re not offering.”
“I’m going to sleep with you.”
Travis’s eyes bugged out of his head. He looked from right to left and then carefully pulled the blankets back and leaned close to her, both hands up as if she was a dangerous animal ready to snap.
“And you’re not going to get laid. You’re going to sleep too. So move over bed buddy. You’ve just acquired a roomie!”
Travis glared then nervously looked around the room. “I’m a bed hog. Trust me, you’re better off sleeping on the floor.”
“No, I think I’ll take the bed.” Kacey grinned. “Oh and I snore, and sometimes I have night terrors. So if I start screaming just shake me, but make sure it’s gentle. If you wake someone up from a night terror and freak them out… well, let’s just say that’s when they turn homicidal.”