Ex-Factor (Diamond Girls) (14 page)

Unable to stop the sigh that escaped me, I dug my fingers into the flesh at the back of his head and gave myself over fully to the kiss. And God, Bodie Scott knew how to use his lips. I felt his kiss all the way to my toes and back, and I had to fight the urge to straddle him. There was just something about him. No, scratch that. It was everything about him. His enormous and powerful “I’ll knock you into tomorrow” frame, the way he reined in that power when he was near me, his gentleness.

I was done for. Thoroughly smitten. Gone in the head and crushing hard. Damn, but it felt good.

Lungs screaming for air, I broke the kiss and rested my forehead against his as I fought to fill my aching lungs. Closing my eyes, I wondered once again if it was all a dream. I ghosted the tips of my fingernails up the back of his head and trailed them back down again, smiling on the inside when I felt his body shudder against me.

He groaned and shook his head. “Still think I hate you?”

I blew out a nervous laugh, unable to wrap my head around any of it. Surreal. My night with Bodie felt surreal.

His hands slid up my waist and along my ribcage. His carefully controlled touch sent waves of delicious heat swirling inside me as they made their way up my arms, finally settling on my cheeks. He pulled his face back enough to look me in the eyes, and what I saw floored me.

Bodie’s expression was filled with remorse. “I was a dick to you, Doll Face. I’m sorry.” He exhaled a heavy breath, his jaw tightening in what looked like disappointment—in himself.  “I saw you talking with Callie that first morning you showed up, and I just assumed you were tight with her.”

His expression grew serious then. “I’ve got no love for Callie, or her skeezey friends. Not after…” He closed his eyes, shook his head. When he opened them again, his expression had softened, and he eyed me with a mixture of regret, and hope. “I really am sorry, Nev. Forgive me?”

The sincerity radiating from him was tangible, unmistakable, and it nearly brought me to my knees. Bodie wasn’t lying. He was truly sorry, and the depth of his candor made him even more irresistible. I attacked his lips with mine, hoping he’d clue in to the fact I’d totally forgiven him. People made mistakes, and as a person who’d made several life-ruining mistakes herself, I was in no position to hold a grudge or withhold forgiveness. I knew where he was coming from.

The kiss picked up where we’d left off, and the outside world fell away once again, leaving Bodie and me floating in a thick haze of lust and hormones.

“Nev!”

I thought I heard Livvie’s voice off in the distance, but I couldn’t be bothered to pull away from Bodie to check. Hell, I couldn’t even be bothered to breathe. Nothing mattered except him, and me, and our lips moving together.

“Nev! Where are y—oh! Awkward.”

Bodie broke our kiss with a groan, and I staggered away from him as though I was a little kid who’d been caught smuggling chocolate cake into a fat camp.

“Well, well, well. Looks like it’s been a good night all around.” Livvie stood three feet from us, with her hands on her hips and her mouth drawn into a frown. Her words didn’t match her expression. I narrowed my gaze, wondering what was up with my normally happy cousin.

I chanced a look at Bodie, who stood pleased as punch with himself, smiling at me like he’d won the lottery. He stepped forward and grasped the tip of my fingers, my skin coming alive as he threaded our fingers together. He didn’t seem affected in the least by Livvie’s unhappy expression.

“I’d say your cousin is right, Doll Face. It has been a good night.” He raised a playful brow. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

I grinned like an idiot and nodded, completely ignoring the obnoxious gagging noises Livvie had begun making.

“Okay, you two are giving me a damn toothache.” She beamed Bodie with a heated gaze and grabbed me by the wrist. “Say goodbye to the pretty girl and go home, Big Boy. I need my cousin back.”

I narrowed my eyes and fought against her iron grasp as she tried to pull me away. “What’s wrong? Why do you need me?” Had her new boy toy, J.P., tried something with her? Did I need to go postal on his butt? Were Erin and the girls okay?

“Sheesh, Nev! You look like you’re gonna freak out. Relax.” She jabbed a finger over her shoulder and frowned. “The dance is over. Has been for about ten minutes now. Didn’t you two notice the massive herd of people flooding the parking lot?”

I gazed over my shoulder at the line of students streaming into the lot, and squinted as a set of blazing headlights singed my eyes. A loud muscle car rounded the lot and gunned its noisy engine as it neared the exit.

Lost in the moment with Bodie, I hadn’t noticed a thing. Someone could have dropped a bomb on the parking lot, and I would have been none the wiser.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Give me a sec, all right?”

Livvie pursed her lips and let out a small huff.

Criminy.
I narrowed my eyes, more than a little shocked by Livvie’s unusual behavior. She never scowled, and she never huffed. Something was up with her, but I had no clue what that something was.

“Yeah, okay.” She swiped a hand over her shoulder. “I’ll just give you two some privacy and wait by the front of the school. You parked out in the boonies, and there’s no way in hell I’m walking to your car by myself.” She cast me a pointed stare and raised a brow. “Try not to suck his face off.”

I opened my mouth, a biting response on the tip of my tongue, but she took off before I had a chance to speak.
What is going on with you, Livvie?

Bodie tugged at my arm, our fingers still laced together from before.

Heat burned beneath the surface of my skin. I closed the gap between us and smiled up at him, unable to mask my happiness. The guilt I normally felt when anything good presented itself was noticeably absent, leaving me to assume I’d be having a Texas-sized guilt trip later when I got home. I couldn’t be bothered to think about that now, though, and socked those thoughts away for a time when Bodie wasn’t smiling down at me.

He ran the pad of his thumb back and forth ever so gently against my palm, and reached up to play with the ends of my hair with his other hand. “So, when am I gonna see you again?”

The heavenly sensation rippling up the length of my arm distracted me from pretty much everything else, and I answered him before really thinking about what I was saying. “Um, on Monday? In class?”

He shook his head and gave a low chuckle. “Nah. I meant outside of school. When can I see you again?”

I wanted to explode. Literally explode out of my flesh and dance like a skinless freak up and down the street. Bodie had not only turned what had started out as a crap day into one of the best nights I could remember, but now he wanted to see me again? Every cell in my body screamed yes at the same time. Sign us up! Tell us where and when and I’ll be there! Could a person die from smiling too much? My cheeks ached, and by the way my heart pounded in my chest, I was sure I’d developed some kind of angina condition. A heart could only take so much excitement.

“Um, Cartwright did say we needed to finish up that assignment we were working on before you, well, you know,” I said rather stupidly. God! Why did I always have to stick my foot in my mouth at the most inopportune times? I kept talking, hoping he’d overlook my stupidity. “The assignment is due on Wednesday. Do you want to get together tomorrow and work on it?”

Bodie hadn’t specified what he wanted to do. I had no clue if he wanted to go out on like a “date” date, or if he wanted to keep things casual. What with the tonsil hockey we’d just engaged in, I was pretty sure he wanted more than casual, but I wasn’t going to assume anything. Bringing up our assignment seemed safe, and well, we actually had to get the darned thing done.

He nodded and smiled. “Yeah, okay. Here.” He dropped the strand of hair he’d been tugging on and fished his cell from his pocket.

A low rumble sounded from the opposite side of the truck. The group of lineman he’d been standing with inside the gym were hanging back, giving Bodie and me some space. I had no clue who they were—I was still trying to place faces and names—but I thought it was decent of them not to crowd us, and I wondered, errantly, if any of them would ever lift a finger should Bodie have a seizure in front of them. I had no clue what that answer would be, and hoped he’d never have to find out.

“Well, are you gonna put your number in my cell or not?” he asked with a laugh.

“What? Oh!” Embarrassment flooded my cheeks as I pulled my cell from my pocket and handed it to Bodie in exchange for his. “Sorry,” I said with a nervous giggle. God, I was pathetic.

We entered our pertinent info into each other’s phones and returned them with an awkward mix of urgency and shyness. Seemed a bit silly, since we’d just wrestled each other with our tongues, but there it was.

He brushed the backs of his fingers alongside my cheek, down into my hair, and I bit the inside of my lip in an effort to keep my smile at an appropriate level. I was pretty darn sure he had a thing for my hair, and there was a good part of me that wanted to pull a Marcia Brady and never wash the stuff again because he’d touched it.

“I’ll call you tomorrow then. Maybe you can come out to the ranch. Look around.” He leaned forward, pressed his lips to my forehead in a tender kiss, then gave my hand a squeeze.

I managed to whisper a weak sounding “okay,” and smiled before floating across the parking lot to the front of the school where Livvie was not so patiently waiting for me.

“God, Nev! Let’s get a move on. It’s freezing out here,” she said, frantically rubbing at her arms in a vain attempt to generate heat. The temperature had dropped several degrees over the past hour, not that I’d noticed. I’d had Bodie to keep me warm.

As I drew closer, she took one look at my gelatinous, love-struck face and cooled her impatient jets.

“Good Lord, girl. You are trouble with a capital T,” she said as we hustled it down the street toward my car.

“Trouble? How am I trouble?” What did she mean? I’d done everything I could to stay under the radar and out of the way. Granted, that hadn’t seemed to keep Eli from locking his sights on me and pursuing me with a vengeance, but some things just couldn’t be helped. I was fairly certain I had that situation on lockdown, so I wasn’t sure what she meant.

I hit the unlock button on my key fob, and we climbed into the chilly vehicle, teeth clattering, bodies shaking. I jammed the key into the ignition and fired up the heater before turning to face Livvie, curious as to what she’d meant. “So, what do you mean, I’m trouble?”

Livvie shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know, Nev. It’s just, well, out of all the guys you could get involved with, you picked the one that’s even more messed up than you are. Bodie’s dangerous, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

I pursed my lips and scowled, surprised by her admission. Yeah, Bodie had a hairy past, but then, so did I. A past Livvie didn’t know about. If she could pass judgment on Bodie so easily, what would she think of me if she ever found out about what went down the night my father died? A chill coursed through me, and I fought to pull air into my lungs. I didn’t want to know the answer to that question. Livvie was my rock. I couldn’t lose her.

Chapter Eleven

Status update:
Still floating…

Holding plank position was hands down my least favorite part of warming up, and I groaned in protest, wondering what had possessed me to drag my tired butt down to the gym at eight a.m. on a Saturday. Every inch of me wanted to hide under my covers and replay the events of last night over, and over, and over again.

“Minute’s up! Flip!” Coach Shea’s voice cut through the oppressive early morning silence, and an errant thought crossed my mind that she’d make a great drill sergeant with the way she barked out orders.

I rolled onto my back and held a hollow position, contracting my abs and lifting my legs and arms off the floor. I looked like a human banana, only purple due to lack of oxygen and full body strain.

Groaning, I glanced over to Erin and grimaced. “Oh my God. This totally sucks butt.”

“Jesus,” Livvie moaned from my other side.  “Ugh!” Her arms and legs hit the floor with a forceful thud. She rolled onto her side, red-faced and sweaty. “Kill me now, please.” Puffing out her cheeks as she exhaled, she rolled onto her back and smoothed back the fly-aways that had escaped her ponytail. “Saturday practices suck, but we need them.”

Erin piped in from the right, her face equally flushed, the tendons in her neck straining. “Our first comp is next weekend. Gotta lock down those skills. Make sure we tumble clean. No touch downs.”

My stomach clenched. I’d yet to nail my cross pass with any type of consistency. Coach Shea had choreographed the routine so that I ran the final pass during the tumbling section, a round off, back-handspring Arabian, round off back-handspring, whip, whip, double full. I landed single fulls just fine. But doubles? Yeah, about fifty percent of the time I either touched down, or fell on my butt. I was nowhere near the level I’d once been, and that weighed heavy in my heart. While Coach had been extremely patient and supportive of me up until this point, I felt pressure, not only from myself, but from my teammates as well. The Diamond Girls had been undefeated the previous season and were counting on me to help them stay on top.

I didn’t feel very helpful, though. If anything, I felt like an anchor weighing them down. It had taken two entire practices for me to learn how to hold my flyer’s feet properly while in the air, forcing the team to come in for an extra practice my second week in to make up for time lost. Not to mention, I had a bad tendency to place my hands in fists when they should’ve been blades, and I nearly always started the jump section half a count before everyone else. Of course, these were all things that could be easily fixed, and wouldn’t be a cause for stress or worry if we had another month to practice and work out the kinks. But the Cheerz competition was a week away, leaving us relatively no time at all. I needed to step up my game. Big time.