Full Coverage: Boys of Fall (2 page)

He made a good show of liking things more cultured. He’d developed a taste for wine and he actually liked Broadway. Most of it. He could name all the courses of a seven-course meal and he really did like tailored suits. He’d always been an avid reader and a connoisseur of current events and politics, so he could hold his own in conversations with the people he met at New York publishing parties, but he had actually found himself missing talk about the weather and football—two of the main topics of almost any conversation in Texas.

So, he was a gentleman. Guys in Texas were raised to be, and his mother, a single mom who was very bitter about being single, had impressed upon him how important it was to treat women well. But now he knew how to be smooth and classy too.

But instead of doing that, and letting Randi off the hook for her comment, he said, “Good, huh? Why’s that?”

Randi turned her attention back on the view in front of her. Nolan moved in to rest his forearms on the top of the fence and put a foot up on the bottom railing.

“Well, I heard she was engaged to Garrett Dunn before he died.”

Garrett was also a Quinn boy. He’d been a cop in San Antonio and had been killed in the line of duty. Nolan nodded. “She was. But she and Carter were very good friends while she was with Garrett and their feelings grew into more.”

Randi seemed to be thinking about that as she took a long draw of her beer.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. She swung her legs over the fence, hopped to the ground, wobbled slightly and then straightened to face him with a big smile.

“Okay what?” he asked, resisting the urge to grab her to be sure she stayed upright. Then he wondered why he’d resisted. It was a great excuse to touch her.

“You can dance with me.”

But that was an even better excuse to touch her. He moved in closer. “Okay.”

Randi started to step past him, but he caught her arm. She looked up in surprise.

“Out here,” he said.

“Thought you said you couldn’t dance with me out here?”

The music drifted out this far. It was soft but clear. And it was dark. And they were alone. Out here was definitely his choice. “Well, might as well stay here. There’s no tequila left in there,” he said, pulling her around in front of him and taking her hand in his as he settled the other on her lower back.

She put a hand on his shoulder, but she was studying his face rather than moving her feet.

Nolan didn’t think they’d ever stood this close to one another before. They’d definitely never stood this close when it was just the two of them. He and Randi had mostly socialized with one another while in groups. They had several friends in common, mostly people connected to the football program—players, cheerleaders and avid fans—so they’d been at parties together and such in high school, and since. A football occasion never went by without someone in Quinn throwing a party. Whether it was a home game for the Titans, the Super Bowl, or any football event in between, there was a social event happening in Quinn. But they had rarely even had a conversation just between the two of them. He could recall maybe half a dozen over the years. And they’d all been extremely awkward.

Nolan had always thought it was because they had very little in common. He had always been self-conscious about what he was saying, if he was getting the football jargon right, if his breath smelled, if he looked the part of the dork with a crush.

But now that he thought back on it with twelve years of maturation, Randi had seemed nervous, or fidgety, or something around him too. And every time they’d talked, something strange had happened.

Once they’d been talking, stiltedly, about geometry class. Suddenly she’d asked if he wanted to see her tattoo. She’d pulled her jeans down on one side and showed him the ladybug tattoo on her left hip. He’d had dirty dreams about that for two weeks afterward.

Then there had been the time they’d been at a party chatting by the snack table about the trouble Jackson had gotten into with one of their teachers. Jackson had been caught having sex with their new young teacher and had been kicked off the football team. There had come an awkward pause in the conversation. Randi had dunked a chip in dip and some of the dip had dropped onto the upper curve of her right breast—he could still remember the exact spot. She’d wiped the drip up with the tip of her finger and as she licked it off, her eyes had met Nolan’s. And she’d blurted, “My peach body powder actually tastes like peaches.”

He’d had dirty dreams about peaches dunked in ranch after that.

There was another time when she’d said something about having poison ivy on her butt and thighs was the most miserable she’d ever been, and the time she’d confessed that she and two of her friends slept naked outside one summer night. He couldn’t remember what had prompted either of those admissions, or if they were even somehow connected, because Randi saying the word “naked” pretty much sucked everything else out of his mind.

Their one-on-ones were always a little bizarre. It was probably no wonder they’d both seemed to avoid conversations with one another.

Her tongue darted out to nervously wet her lips, and he found himself mesmerized by the pink tip and the shininess it left behind.

She reached for the fence and the other shot glass he hadn’t noticed until now. She brought it to her mouth and, with her eyes locked on his, she shot it back. She swallowed, set the glass back on the fence, and stepped closer to him.

“Sorry about drinking all the tequila,” she finally said. “Maybe I can share.”

And suddenly Nolan felt her hand at the back of his head, drawing him down, and then her warm, soft lips against his.

Surprise and desire battled to be the primary emotion coursing through his body.

But then her tongue slid along
his
bottom lip and desire won hands down.

Nolan opened his mouth as both of his hands dropped to her hips and brought her body against his. He definitely tasted the tequila. And a spicy sweetness that was all Randi—and all he’d ever wanted.

Randi gave a little moan as his hands slid from her hips to her ass. He was going to lose his mind. But it was going to be a very nice trip to crazy.

Her fingers curled into his hair as her other hand fisted the front of his shirt. She arched closer and Nolan took over the kiss. He stroked her tongue hungrily, then gentled things, kissing her softly, nipping at her bottom lip before again pressing against her tongue, trying to drink her in.

He felt her leg wrap around his, and he couldn’t help but drop his hand from her ass to the back of her thigh below the hem of her short dress. Her skin was like silk, and while he might not give a kidney for a smile, he’d definitely give one away for the chance to lick her right there.

And she’d been right about sharing the tequila this way. He was absolutely feeling tipsy now. But it was that thought that made him lift his head. As much as he’d love to make out with Randi for another solid hour or so in Coach’s backyard, he wouldn’t do it with her when she was drunk.

She stared up at him, breathing fast. Nolan also had to draw in two or three gulps of oxygen before he could speak.

“Thanks for the taste,” he said.

She pressed her lips together, then asked, “You sure you got enough?”

He almost groaned. He wasn’t sure there would ever be such a thing as enough with her. “My head’s spinning,” he told her. “And I’ve got to drive.”

Randi let him go and stepped back. For a second, Nolan kicked himself. What the fuck was he doing? Turning her down for more of
that
? This was Miranda Doyle. He might never get another shot. But he didn’t want a drunken shot. He wanted her fully with him and he wanted her to remember it for a very long time afterward.

Like he would.

She wet her lips again, watching him. “I have more tequila back at my place,” she said. “But I don’t have any shot glasses. We might have to do body shots instead.”

Jesus
. Nolan thought his heart skipped a beat there. Talk about the most tempting thing he’d ever heard in his life.

It didn’t matter how many women he’d been with. Simply kissing Randi had just obliterated the taste of any other woman from his mind. Of course, it had been a hell of a kiss and was fueled by the fact that he’d dreamed of it for a long, long time. And it had been even better than anything his imagination had come up with. He’d never shoot Patron without thinking of her—and probably getting hard—again.

Which meant that the only time he should really do tequila shots would be
with
her. Like right now.

But no. She was drunk.

“I’ll take you home,” he told her. “But I can’t stay.”

She frowned. “I promise not to talk.”

Nolan paused at that. She promised not to talk? What did that mean? “Randi—”

“Have you done body shots before?” she asked. She moved in closer and put a hand on his chest. “You lick the salt off my neck, suck the tequila out of my belly button, and then take the lime from my mouth.”

Nolan cleared his throat. He knew the basics, had seen it done, but had never done it himself. Suddenly he wanted nothing more in the entire world than to suck tequila from her belly button.

“Or I could put the lime right here.” She ran her finger from her collarbone to the glorious dip between her breasts. “And really, you can lick the salt from wherever you want to.”

That list was embarrassingly long.

“Randi, if you weren’t drunk, I’d take you up on all of that in a New York minute, but—”

Her brows slammed together and she pushed him back. She ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah, okay, whatever. I guess women in New York don’t put limes between their breasts, right?”

She stepped around him and stomped toward the barn party.

It took Nolan another minute to follow. What had that been about? He hadn’t mentioned New York on purpose, it was just an expression.

He didn’t catch up with her until she was standing in front of her best friend, Annabelle, and her boyfriend Jackson.

“Can you take me home?” Randi asked Annabelle before Nolan could say anything.

Annabelle’s gaze went to Nolan. “Of course,” she told Randi. “You ready now?”

“Yes,” Randi said firmly.

“I can take you,” Nolan said from behind her.

Randi swung around so fast that she wobbled. He didn’t resist this time. He reached out and took her arm, keeping her upright and bringing her closer.

“I’m fine,” Randi said. But she didn’t try to shake his hold off.

“How about that dance?” he asked. He wanted a chance to talk to her, to make sure she understood that he wasn’t rejecting her because he didn’t want her.

And what universe was this anyway, where
he
was reassuring Randi Doyle that he wanted her?

“I don’t want to dance,” she told him. “I want to go home. Alone.”

“Nolan,” Jackson said, stepping forward. “We’ve got her.”

“I just…” Nolan looked down at Randi and let go of her arm. “I just want her to wake up tomorrow feeling good.”

With no regrets. Like doing body shots—and more—with him because she’d been drunk and melancholy.

“I’ll be sure she gets ibuprofen and lots of water before bed,” Annabelle said, wrapping her arm around Randi’s waist.

Yeah, ibuprofen and water, that was a much better solution than giving her what
he
wanted to give her before bed. And in bed. And in the middle of the night. But part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that if what she most needed was ibuprofen, then he wanted to be the one providing that too.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping back.

Annabelle and Randi turned toward the front of the barn and Jackson moved to follow, but he paused and looked at Nolan.

“Everything okay with the two of you?”

Nolan gave a humorless laugh. “Of course.” Then he said the main thing that mattered at that moment. “There’s not a two of us anyway.”

Jackson didn’t reply to that, but he clapped Nolan on the shoulder and then followed the girls out to where the cars were parked all over the grass in front of the barn.

“You look sad.”

He looked down. Lacey. With Annabelle and Jackson taking Randi home, she was alone again until Carter got there.

“Dance with me,” he said. Dancing with a beautiful woman was always a good idea. Even if she wasn’t
his
beautiful woman.

As he took Lacey into his arms, his gaze went to the barn door where Randi had disappeared. It was the stupidest thing to ever cross his mind but
his woman
made him think of Randi, and the idea of her doing body shots with anyone else, ever, made him want to kill someone.

Him. A guy who had never even punched another guy. But yeah, the idea of someone else’s mouth on her body made him see red.

“Hey, ow.”

He looked down and realized he’d been squeezing Lacey’s hand tightly.

“Jesus, sorry.” He let go and shoved a hand through his hair.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You seem riled up.”

Just then something caught his eye at the front of the barn. Carter was finally here. And he looked more riled up than Nolan felt.

Nolan pulled Lacey back into his arms, unable to fight the temptation to stir the pot.

He needed something to take his mind off of Randi.

“We need to talk,” Carter told Lacey as he approached.

And the look on Carter’s face made Nolan positive that he’d be nice and distracted from Randi for the foreseeable hours.

Thank God.

“
O
h
, 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 was
him
who 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.

Dammit.

“I’m not really looking for a
dance
tonight,” she said.

“What’re you lookin’ for?”

And there was a little hint of his Texas drawl. That had been distinctly missing from his words since he’d moved to San Antonio. Which was crazy. San Antonio was very much Texas. But Nolan had never had the hard accent a lot of the guys did in Quinn, and he’d “cleaned up” since he’d gone to the city. He rarely wore jeans or boots—Coach’s party had definitely been an exception. He seemed to prefer dress slacks and button-down shirts, sometimes with a jacket, and he hadn’t put a cowboy hat on his head in years.

According to all the gossip she heard, anyway. Though she had noticed his speech and dress on his visits to Quinn too. And mourned the absence of denim. Blue jeans were
always
her preference, even over a tuxedo. Though the last time she’d seen one of those on a guy around here was prom, and it wasn’t like those were the best look. The guys looked nervous and uncomfortable in the ill-fitted, hot, cumbersome things.

Annabelle kicked her under the table. Randi started and realized she’d been staring at Nolan as her thoughts turned. He was simply watching her, that grin in place, letting his question about what she was looking for hang in the air between them.

What was she looking for? A Quinn boy. Who could make her heart hammer and her stomach flip. A Quinn boy she wanted to dance with. Tequila or not.

“More tequila,” she told him instead.

Because
he
was a Quinn boy who made her heart hammer and her stomach flip. And she wanted to dance with him. But he wasn’t really a
Quinn
boy. Not anymore. He’d grown up here…but he’d grown beyond Quinn. He wasn’t a small-town kid anymore.

She was.

She always would be.

But for a moment she recognized the emotion in her throat. Wistfulness.

She loved Quinn, and after twenty nine years here, there wasn’t much for surprises anymore.

That had to explain her strange and sudden reaction to Nolan. He was a surprise. Or the way he made her feel hot and tingly when she looked at his lips and remembered their kiss was a surprise, anyway.

“I need to ask you a question,” he said. “Maybe I can buy you the next round, then and we can talk.”

Talk? Hell no. That was the last thing she wanted to do with Nolan Winters. It was the only time she felt like a dumbass. Other than the one time she’d tried to dry hump him in Coach’s backyard.

The music on the jukebox changed to a Thomas Rhett song she loved and she slid off the high chair. “On second thought, dancing sounds great.”

Because what she couldn’t add to a conversation about current events or politics, she could more than make up for on a country bar dance floor. Typically the guys she hung out with wanted to talk about the same things she did—sports, cars, the locals—and when they ran out of words, they danced and drank. She could do all of those things ’til early in the morning.

Nolan didn’t talk about sports or cars, and he didn’t strike her as the gossipy type, so they were going to have to go straight to the dancing and drinking after all.

Good thing that, no matter how smart they were and how they dressed, all guys could be distracted by two things—boobs and compliments.

* * *

R
andi was dressed
up again tonight. It was February, so she was in jeans instead of a short summer dress, but she still wore her boots. And when she shrugged out of the jacket she was wearing, her fitted red top still clung to the most gorgeous pair of breasts he knew.

She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the dance floor. Nolan was a smart guy—he followed without complaint.

This was swaying music, so he took her in his arms. He needed to gauge if she was right about the too-much-tequila tonight. He had a proposition and he wanted her honest answer. And he wouldn’t mind picking up where they’d left off at Coach’s, if she seemed so inclined.

He’d been thinking about her nonstop for the past four months. No, more than thinking about her. He’d been worked up about her. Previously, he’d always been able to put her out of his mind when he was away from Quinn. Once in awhile he’d find himself comparing the city girls to her. It would start off as a compare and contrast between city girls and country girls in general, but when he was comparing caviar to buffalo wings, champagne to tequila and orchestra music to country twang, it didn’t take long for his mind to go to Randi. But it wasn’t like he obsessed about her all the time. He didn’t even think about her every day.

But since Coach’s party, he had been. And frankly, he was on edge tonight. He was trying not to show it, but the second he’d set foot in Quinn this trip, he’d decided he was going to see what it was like to kiss a completely sober Randi.

She and that kiss were the whole reason for this trip.

The book was a great front. He could always talk to somebody here about football or Coach. And he did have a few chapters to go. He also needed to figure out photos. He had a photographer lined up for whenever he was ready , but he needed to figure out what he wanted in the book, and to best capture Coach and Quinn and the love for the game that permeated the fabric of this town. But the book was just his cover for coming back to see Randi after finally getting his lips and hands on her.

He’d intended to get back here before this. If he hadn’t had to wait four months, he might not be on the verge of throwing her over his shoulder and heading to her house right this minute. But he hadn’t had a chance to get back. He’d been to New York twice and had been working on his book, as well as still doing all his writing for the
San Antonio Express-News
. There hadn’t been any damned time. And now that he’d seen her, he was fighting to not pull her close, slide his hands under the back of her shirt onto hot, bare skin and lay a kiss on her unlike any she’d ever had.

But he wouldn’t do it in public.

Partly because he hadn’t yet determined how sober or drunk she was—though if she was too drunk again tonight, he was heading straight to the pond for a cold swim and then a bottle of tequila of his own. He needed an outlet for this pent-up energy. He hadn’t gotten rip-roaring drunk in too long. They said to write drunk and edit sober, but he’d never had a lot of luck with that approach. Between his book and the paper, he’d been far too sober for far too long.

And he wouldn’t kiss Randi in public because he was afraid she’d push him back and demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing. In front of everyone. He wasn’t fucking doing that. Even if he was twenty-nine and past all of those insecurities.

They didn’t talk. Randi held herself stiffly in his arms and seemed to be lost in thought. But as Thomas Rhett switched to Carrie Underwood, Nolan felt her relax a little, and by the time Little Big Town came on, he felt enough tension leave her that he could pull her closer, and she came without a protest. When an old Garth Brooks floated out of the jukebox, she gave a big sigh, stepped completely up against Nolan and rested her head on his shoulder.

Suddenly he felt a lot of his own tightness flow out of him. He didn’t need tequila or a cold swim or even hard-against-the-wall sex. He just needed her in his arms.

Damn. He was in trouble.

She felt good, she smelled good,and when she took her hand from his and wrapped both arms around his neck, Nolan felt a kick in his chest.

Two more songs played before she turned her head toward his face. Her lips were millimeters from his neck when she said, “I’m not drunk.”

He swallowed, his skin feeling hot and a new tension filling his body. This was a whole lot less frustration and unrequited want and a lot more pure
need
.

“Glad to hear it.” Really, really glad to hear it.

“The margarita on the table was my first and I didn’t even finish it.”

Nolan pulled back and looked down at her. “Say it.” He had relaxed since getting here—since getting
her
up against him. But he wasn’t going to play around and tease about this.

She lifted her head and looked him directly in the eye. “I want to kiss you again.”

He studied her face. She was completely sincere. And sober.

Nolan pulled a long breath in through his nose. A breath full of the scent of peaches. That scent had always made him think of her. He didn’t know if it was her shampoo or a body wash or what. But he intended to find out just how much of her smelled like peaches. “Not here,” he said simply.

She nodded.

He took her hand and started for the door of the bar. He still needed to ask her for the favor he needed, but that could wait until after the kissing. Everything in the world could now wait until after the kissing.

Making out with Miranda Doyle in the bed of a pickup down by the pond had been a long, longtime fantasy. Unfortunately, he no longer had a pickup.

She waved at Annabelle, who was watching them cross the bar with wide eyes and a knowing smile. Nolan didn’t care who saw them leaving or what they thought about the reason.

He stopped by the door though. “You need to pay or give Annabelle a ride home or anything?” he asked Randi.

She reached around him and pushed the door open, nudging him through with her body. “I have a tab and Annabelle has a Jackson.”

Her breasts pressed against his biceps, her feet tangled with his, and Nolan wrapped an arm around her waist to keep them from tumbling onto the stoop of Pitchers.

“Easy, Ladybug,” he said softly.

Randi got her feet under her and jerked upright. “What did you call me?”

He thought fast. Shit. He’d called her Ladybug. What the fuck? They did
not
have a relationship that leant itself to nicknames.