She peeked back up at me, and the interest in her eyes made me bite back a groan. I would not do anything else in this damn car. She was too good for a car. I wanted to give her the best of everything. That included the best of sex.

“Let me get you dressed, then I’ll go find Bethy and see if she needs a ride or if she found a cowboy to take her home,” I said.

She stretched her body out like a cat, and I clenched my fists to keep from grabbing her and claiming her mouth again. “OK,” she agreed.

“If I wasn’t hard as a damn rock right now, I’d consider staying right here and enjoying the sleepy little pleased look in your eyes. I like knowing I put it there. But I need some more,” I whispered against her ear.

She tensed, then eased back against me. Damn, I had to get her clothes on her—and fast.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I reached for her bra and concentrated on dressing her. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder before I covered it up with her shirt. She had let me put her bra and shirt back on without protest, and the caveman in me was beating on his chest. I loved taking care of her, and having her let me only made me a little more insane where she was concerned.

“I’d prefer you stay out here while I go find Bethy. You have that well-pleased look on your face, and it’s seriously sexy . I don’t want to end up in a fight,” I told her once I had her covered up again.

“I came here with Bethy because I was trying to encourage her not to sleep around with guys who would never look at her for more than a fun time. Then you came with us, and now here I am in the backseat of your car. I feel like I owe her an explanation,” she said, looking worried.

I had assumed Bethy had been trying to ruin Blaire, but Blaire had been the one to reach out to Bethy. Interesting. My sweet Blaire was trying to save the world from itself. No one had ever saved her. Until now. Damn time someone showed her how special she was.

She was watching me nervously. Did she think she had just done what she was trying to stop Bethy from doing? Surely she understood this was different.

“I’m trying to decide if you meant that to sound like you were doing what you encouraged her not to do,” I said, as I moved over her and slid a hand into her hair. “Because I’ve had a taste, and I’m not sharing. This isn’t just for fun. I may be slightly addicted.” This was nothing like what she was trying to stop Bethy from doing. I would have never touched Blaire had I not been sure I was claiming her as mine. There would be no one else touching her.

I leaned down and kissed those lips I loved so much. Tasting her bottom lip with the top of my tongue had become one of my favorite things to do. She always shivered when I did it, and the taste was always delicious.

“Mmmmm, yeah. You stay here. I’ll get Bethy to come out and talk to you,” I whispered against her mouth.

She nodded but didn’t say anything else.

I moved away from her warmth and opened the door to get out. I had to find Bethy and get us home. I wanted Blaire in my room. In my bed. I wanted more of what we’d just had. I could fix the past. I could make it all right. I would make it right for Blaire. I had to. I couldn’t lose this.

Back in the bar, I looked around and found Bethy with some guy, taking a shot of something that didn’t look like another girlie drink. Great. I didn’t want a drunk Bethy to hinder my plans. Blaire couldn’t fix what had been messed up for years. Once Bethy had been different. I remembered her when she was younger. I’d seen her with Tripp once. They had been friends, I think, but then he’d run off, and the next time I saw Bethy was underneath a guy whose daddy owned condos along the Gulf coast. She’d been f**king the trust-fund brats ever since.

Her gaze landed on me, and I motioned for her to meet me outside, then turned and went back out into the night. I looked in the direction of my Range Rover and made sure Blaire was still safely inside.

“You two disappeared,” Bethy said, with a slur to her voice and a big grin on her face. I turned to see her walking toward me. Then she stumbled, and I had to reach out and grab her before she face-planted on the pavement. “Oops.” She giggled, going limp in my arms. “I can’t feel my feet,” she said through her laughter.

I wasn’t going to be able to leave her here. “Looks like I’m taking you home now, too,” I told her, and stood her up straight.

“What? No no no no. I dunwanna go yet,” she said, shaking a finger in my direction. “Blaire needs to come see the new cowboys I found. She’ll love ’em.”

I tensed and jerked her toward the car. “Blaire isn’t interested in cowboys anymore. Got that? No more guys for Blaire. She’s going home with me,” I said angrily.

Bethy stopped and swayed, then looked at me, her eyes round with understanding. “She lives at your house. Do you mean home to her room or home to your room?” she asked, then burped and covered her mouth.

“My room. Go,” I said, making her walk again.

“Oh, shit,” Bethy said in a loud attempt at a whisper. “You —oh, shit, Rush, you can’t f**k her. She ain’t . . . I think she’s a virgin.” Bethy was whispering loudly enough for the entire parking lot to hear her.

“Shut up, Bethy,” I growled, and opened the car door for her. “She wants to go home, with me. But first, she wants to talk to you.” This was not how I wanted to spend the drive back to Rosemary Beach. I’d hoped I could talk to Blaire. Now we had a drunk Bethy talking about Blaire’s virginity. Shit.

“Well, look at you. Making it with the hottest thing in Rosemary Beach in the back of his Range Rover. And here I thought you wanted a blue-collar man,” Bethy said to Blaire.

“Climb on in, Bethy, before you fall on your ass out here,” I ordered, wishing I could shut her the hell up.

“I don’t wanna leave. I liked Earl, or was his name Kevin? No, wait, what happened to Nash? I lost him . . . I think,” Bethy muttered, as she climbed inside clumsily.

“Who are Earl and Kevin?” Blaire asked.

Bethy reached for something to grab, then fell backward onto the seat and almost on top of Blaire. “Earl is married. He said he wasn’t, but he is. I could tell. The married ones always have the smell about ’em.”

I closed Bethy’s door and then walked around to get Blaire out of the backseat. She was going up front with me. I jerked her door open and held out my hand for hers. “Don’t try to make sense of anything she says. I found her at the bar finishing up a round of six tequila shots that married Earl had bought her. She’s trashed.” I wanted to clear up anything Bethy had said or was going to say that could upset Blaire.

Blaire slipped her hand into mine, and I squeezed it to reassure her.

“No need in explaining anything to her tonight. She won’t remember it in the morning,” I told Blaire.

She was worried about clearing the air with Bethy, and Bethy was doing exactly what she always did—just without the trust-funders.

I helped Blaire down, then pulled her against me and closed the door, leaving Bethy inside. “I want a taste of those sweet lips, but I’m going to deny myself. We need to get her home before she gets sick,” I said, not wanting this to spoil what had just happened with us.

Blaire nodded, staring up at me with those trusting eyes. I didn’t want to ever let that face down.

“But what I said earlier. I meant it. I want you in my bed tonight,” I reminded her, in case it was possible she could have forgotten.

She nodded again. I slipped my hand to her lower back and walked her over to the passenger door. I wasn’t going to pretend we were friends anymore. We weren’t friends. We had never been friends. It was more than that. With Blaire, it was always more.

“Fuck the friend thing,” I told her, before taking her waist and picking her up to put her in the seat. It was high, and I wanted a reason to touch her. I closed her door and walked around to climb in, and the grin on her face made me warm inside. “What’s the grin for?” I asked, hoping I had put it there.

She shrugged and bit her bottom lip. “ ‘Fuck the friend thing.’ It made me laugh.”

I laughed. Good, I had put that smile there. I’d also made her laugh. Why did it feel like I’d just solved world hunger?

“I know something you don’t know. Yes, I do. Yes, I do,” Bethy began chanting in a drunken singsong voice.

I didn’t want her distracting us. Messing this up. It was my time with Blaire, and I wanted that. Why couldn’t she just pass out or something?

Blaire shifted in her seat to look back at Bethy.

“I know something,” Bethy whispered loudly like she had been doing outside.

“I heard that,” Blaire said.

“It’s a big secret. A huge one . . . and I know it. I’m not supposed to, but I do. I know something you don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know.” Bethy started singing again.

She knew a secret. A sick knot formed in my stomach. I had secrets. Did she know my secrets? Did she know what Blaire didn’t know? How could I have Blaire if Bethy told her before I could fix it? “That’s enough, Bethy,” I warned.

Blaire turned back around, and I could tell I had startled her. I just wanted Bethy to shut up. I didn’t want to hear any secrets she knew. I reached over and slipped a hand over Blaire’s. I needed to reassure her, but I couldn’t look at her right now. The panic in my throat was taking over.

Bethy couldn’t know. Could she? No one knew. Had Nan told someone? Fuck. I couldn’t let this get out. I had to make this right. Blaire needed me. I couldn’t lose her.

“That was the best time ever. I like blue-collar fellas. They’re so much fun.” Bethy started babbling again. “You should have looked around some more, Blaire. It would have been smarter on your part. Rush is a bad idea. ’Cause there is always Nan.”

Motherfuckinghell!

She knew something. No. She couldn’t know. Not the truth. I moved my hand from Blaire’s to grip the steering wheel. I needed to think, and throwing Bethy’s drunk ass out of the car wasn’t an option. Blaire would never forgive me for that.

“Is Nan your sister?” Blaire asked. The confusion in her voice made me wince. She was questioning my relationship with Nan. If she only knew the truth. I wouldn’t have her. She wouldn’t be here.

I just nodded. I couldn’t say anything else. My throat was thick.

“What did Bethy mean, then? How would us sleeping together affect Nan?”

How did I respond to that? I didn’t know what Bethy knew exactly, but I couldn’t tell Blaire the truth. I hadn’t figured out how to make the past OK. How to make Blaire not leave me when she found out the truth.

She was going to keep asking me questions. I had to stop her. I couldn’t tell her anything. Not now.

“Nan is my younger sister. I won’t . . . I can’t talk about her with you.”

Blaire’s body was rigid. The tension in the car was over-powering. There had to be a way out of this. Blaire trusted me. I wanted that trust. I wanted to deserve it. Bethy couldn’t know. She wouldn’t know. Nan had never said anything to anyone. It was a secret she held close. I was overreacting.

Bethy’s snoring filled the car, and Blaire fixed her gaze on the road. Neither of us said anything. I didn’t want Bethy to wake up and say anything. She was better off passed out. I was safer that way. My secrets were safer.

The distance between Blaire and me seemed to grow by the second, and I hated it. I wanted her in my arms again. I wanted her crying out my name. I didn’t want this wall between us.

When I pulled up to the office, I didn’t ask Blaire if this was where we needed to leave Bethy. I couldn’t say anything to her. I was terrified she’d know. Had she sat there and figured it all out?

I shook Bethy enough to wake her up and help her out of the car. She began mumbling that her dad would kill her and she wanted to sleep in the office. I was pretty sure her aunt Darla would kick her ass in the morning, but that wasn’t my problem. I fished out the key from Bethy’s purse and unlocked the door, then got her inside.

The large leather sofa was close to the door, thank God, because Bethy reeked of cheap tequila, and I didn’t want to be the one holding her up when she started puking. I dropped her onto the sofa. “Lie down,” I instructed her. I grabbed the nearest trash can and set it beside her head. “Vomit in this. You get that shit on the floor, and Darla will be even more pissed.”

Bethy groaned and rolled over.

I went to leave. Just as I opened the door, Bethy’s voice stopped me.

“I won’t tell her about Nan’s daddy. But you need to.” She looked sad as her glassy eyes met mine. She knew who Nan’s daddy was. Shit.

“I will. When it’s time,” I told her.

“Don’t wait too long,” she said, then closed her eyes. Her mouth fell open with a soft snore.

I locked the door and closed it tightly behind me. She was right. I had to fix this before it was too late.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Your room is upstairs now,” I reminded her once we had stepped inside the house and she headed for the kitchen. We still hadn’t spoken. I wasn’t sure what to say to her or even how to talk to her now.

She paused, then turned and headed for the stairs. I couldn’t just let her go like this.

“I tried to stay away from you,” I said.

She stopped and turned to look down at me. The hurt in her eyes was too much. I didn’t want to hurt her. Yet I would be her biggest heartbreak. I hated myself. I hated what I was, who I was.

“That first night, I tried to get rid of you. Not because I disliked you.” I laughed bitterly at the truth. “But because I knew. I knew you’d get under my skin. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay away. Maybe I hated you a little bit then because of the weakness you’d be able to find in me.” I had known from the first moment that she was trouble. She’d break me. But I hadn’t known she’d own me.