“Hard to get,” he said diplomatically.
She would accept that answer. She smiled but said, “I should have called.”
“You don’t have to call.”
“I shouldn’t have just shown up.”
“You can just show up anytime, darlin’,” he told her with a slow grin.
She swallowed. “I’m glad she’s your cousin.”
He looked confused for a moment. Then understanding dawned. “You thought I had another girl over?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Paige.” He shook his head.
“Well, we’re not exclusive,” she said. “We live a thousand miles apart. I wasn’t supposed to be here for three more weeks, and that was going to just be for the wedding. I mean…” She shrugged. “It would be okay.”
No, it fucking wouldn’t! But her voice was wrong. It would be fine. It would probably be good because she and Mitch were not going to be serious. This wasn’t a long-term thing. He’d made her no promises, and she shouldn’t expect anything from him.
And vice versa.
“I told you that I haven’t been with anyone else since I met you last July,” he chided softly, lifting one hand to her face again and drawing his thumb back and forth along her jaw.
She swallowed. He had said that. And it had freaked her out. That was pretty intense.
But she hadn’t been with anyone else since then either.
She’d been shocked when he’d texted her after their one-night stand. It had taken her days to respond because…what was she going to say? She wasn’t looking for a relationship and certainly not a long-distance one. But she’d finally been unable to resist. And they’d texted for six months. No calls. No video chats. No emails. Just texts. But she’d loved it more than any of the dates she’d been on in the two years prior.
Then he’d showed up again a week ago. And dammit, he’d gotten to her.
To the point that she was now standing behind his house in Louisiana, dealing with the realization that she’d actually been jealous over him.
She never got jealous.
“Maybe you were just saying that to get me into bed,” she told him.
“I got you into bed without having to say much of anything the first time,” he reminded her, his voice getting husky and his eyes hot.
Well, that was true enough.
“So you said we had about fifteen minutes to get out of here?”
“Maybe twenty. It’ll take Kennedy ten minutes to walk to my grandma’s bar now that she doesn’t have a ride. Or her phone.” He grinned unapologetically. “Then they’ll all have to get the details, load up, and get over here.”
Paige felt a shot of uh-oh. “Her bra is still in the dryer. She said she couldn’t go to the bar until then.”
He chuckled. “Well, then we might have a little more time. But you never know with Ken. She will love having been the first to meet you and to see my reaction to seeing you. My guess is she’s headed there now to brag.”
“She did mention how happy she was that she met me first.” Paige was feeling a little overwhelmed. And like her this-is-a-bad-idea list would have been a lot more helpful if she’d gone over it somewhere around Memphis instead of New Orleans.
But God, she was so happy to see him. To feel him. Which she did now, running her hands up his arms to his shoulders and then to his chest.
“Yeah, I definitely need some time with you before my whole family wants to meet you.” It seemed her touch made his voice a little gruffer.
Her eyes widened slightly. “And when you say whole family…”
“Dozens of loud, unfiltered, fun-loving Cajuns,” he said with a nod. And a grin.
Dozens. Oh boy.
She’d known about the big family thing. And the up-in-your-business nature of that big family. But she hadn’t really thought about it when she’d been running away from home.
She wasn’t their family or their business. And sure, if she were Mitch’s girlfriend, then maybe she would matter more to them. But she wasn’t. And wouldn’t be.
Right?
“Hey, Paige?”
“Yeah?”
“Get in the truck.”
He probably knew exactly what she was thinking. She hadn’t been shy about telling him that she was not looking for anything too serious or involved.
She nodded and climbed up onto the seat. “Where are we going?”
“Away from here. Where no one can find us for… a while.”
See, the he-surely-has-a-chainsaw-in-his-shed thing should make the idea of driving out to where no one could find them creepy.
The hot look in his eyes, his big, work-hewn hard body, and, dammit, the way she’d missed him over the past week, made it all sound like exactly what she needed though.
“How long is a while? Because a solid week or two would be great. If there’s like a cabin out there somewhere…” She waved her hand in the general direction of the bayou. “I’d be down for that.”
His eyes went hot again, and he leaned in to kiss her quickly. “That sounds like heaven on earth.”
Tingles raced over her body. This guy had a powerful physical effect on her that she still wasn’t used to.
“So we can do that? Right now?”
He chuckled and leaned back. “I wish. But there aren’t many corners of the bayou that my family doesn’t know. And the corners with cabins, they’re definitely aware of.”
“Damn.” It had sounded too good to be true but still, damn.
“But,” he went on. “They won’t chase us out to where I’m takin’ you. They’ll wait for us to come back.”
“They’ll be sure that we will?”
“Well, there’s no seafood pot pie or bread pudding out there.” He slammed the door closed.
She watched him round the front of the truck and then slide behind the wheel. “You’ll always come home for seafood pot pie and bread pudding?” she asked.
He gave her a grin. “Always.” He started the truck and shifted into drive, starting around the side of the house.
“It’s that good?”
“It’s good. But it’s an even better cover.”
“Cover?”
“For how much I just like bein’ at home, sittin’ around with all of them.”
She lifted her brows. “This from the man who was going to move to Iowa last week.”
He stopped at the end of his driveway and gave her an assessing look. Several seconds ticked by. Then he nodded. “Makes you really think about what Iowa had that I wanted so badly, huh?”
Whoa. She frowned. “Dammit, Mitch. I told you I didn’t want anything serious.”
“Yet, here you are.” He pulled onto the street.
“I came for the wedding. Like I said I would.”
“Three weeks early.”
“I got proposed to again.”
He stomped on the brake, stopping right in the middle of the street. Her hand flew up to brace against the dash.
“What?” he demanded.
She nodded. “At Josie’s wedding. A guy I’ve known forever. Asked me to dance, and then worked his way up to ‘you know, we’re both single’.”