Innuendo. Crystal Green

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СКАЧАТЬ with the pain of pleasure.

      A loud laugh from behind Murphy shook him back to the moment.

      He realized he was in a bar, in a crowd, and his cock was aching with fierce, stiff electricity.

      Hell, the fantasy had been good while it’d lasted.

      He glanced back at the woman, who was now stirring her drink, looking into its depths as if she could read the ice like tea leaves. He wanted to fixate on those boots again, but he couldn’t. Not this time.

      Because in this second glance he saw something else about her—a sadness? Something almost hidden under the unruly hair, something that made her hold his attention for a few seconds longer than a girl would who was so obviously not his style.

      But his body wasn’t about to let him get away with that. His penis was nudging against his jeans, still awake.

      Great. In the middle of a crowd—the perfect place for an emerging hard-on.

      It was at that well-timed moment of frustration that she glanced up, meeting the intensity of his gaze.

      She sat up in her chair, smiled, the gesture full of cheer and hope, and the room’s temperature rose about fifty degrees.

      He couldn’t explain why, but his pulse jerked, and it wasn’t from animal need this time. Seeing her all alone like this and smiling at him jiggered some kind of switch, merging desire and emotion into a confusing brew.

      As he stood there, body raging, keening, his cell phone rang. It vibrated against a region that really didn’t require any more encouragement.

      Blood pounding, he calmed himself and broke eye contact with the woman, answering the call.

      But he couldn’t hear anything, so he headed for the door, managing to get there even with the state of his union rubbing against his jeans.

      Kyle was waiting for him outside. Murphy knew his cousin too well—this wasn’t a good sign for the blind date.

      “You can hang up. It’s just me.” Kyle tucked his own phone into his pocket, pulling Murphy away from the building and down the street.

      “Hold up,” Murphy said, shoving his own phone away. He grabbed his cousin’s arm and stopped him from walking any farther. “Tell me you’re not ditching your date.”

      Kyle guided Murphy near the entrance of a closed bakery, the enclosure partially hiding them. “I don’t need to be a fortuneteller to see that there’s nothing there.”

      “You didn’t even have time to talk to her, so how could you know that? Isn’t she enough of a babe for you, Kyle?”

      Murphy didn’t even know why he was firing away with these questions when the answers were so obvious. This was how Kyle operated; the process was no surprise.

      Kyle flinched at Murphy’s tone, telling Murphy that he’d hit every target.

      “She didn’t live up to what I pictured,” Kyle said. “The reality killed the fantasy, that’s all.”

      “Perfect. Good from far, but far from good.”

      “Cut it out, Murphy, I’ll call her right now to say I’ve got an urgent situation and can’t make it. That way neither of us will waste our time by pretending something’ll come of this. No harm done.” Kyle socked Murphy in the arm. “Then we’ll be on our way to better things, because my guy Murphy needs some distraction.”

      Adding to his roguish act, Kyle offered a grin, but Murphy was immune.

      “What?” Kyle asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He leaned against the building, watching a group of suntanned girls in light dresses walk by. Oddly enough, he didn’t even smile as they said hi to him. Instead he gave a slight nod, then fixed a lowered, tentative gaze on his cousin.

      “Hell,” Murphy said, “at least you’ve got standards. At least you won’t screw anything that walks, right?”

      Kyle exhaled, clearly relieved that Murphy had gotten his point. “Exactly. Why even make her think there’s a possibility of—”

      “You’re a real hero, saving her feelings like this.” Murphy grunted. “You’re so damned shallow that you make a trickle of water look deep.”

      “Well, shit, you want to go back in there and go on this mercy date instead? Be my guest. Tamara Clarkson’s the one with the frizzed-out hair, sitting in the corner with a weird fan. Go for it.”

      Murphy’s head almost crashed in on itself. His still-awakened groin stirred. “A fan?”

      “Yeah, a fan. Among other things, I’m not into average Josies from the drama club.”

      Anger—odd and unexplained—welled up in Murphy. “I saw her. She was…” He stopped himself, but his mind finished the thought. She wasn’t average. Hell, no. Striking, yes. A stroke of color in a roomful of moving nothings. A woman who didn’t fit any traditional mold—not society’s definition of beauty, anyway. How could Kyle think she was average?

      “Listen.” Murphy leaned closer, offended for her. “I know how you play it. You sweet-talked her on the phone, got her hopes up, and now you’ll drop her without another care. She’s probably going to be crushed that you stood her up.”

      “You feel sorry for her.”

      Hell, yeah, he did. But it was more than that. It was disappointment in Kyle’s lack of maturity. A twinge of jealousy, because Kyle always seemed to get what Murphy wanted with such relaxed ease—and took it all for granted.

      Freedom. Careless immunity from accountability.

      Murphy got angrier just thinking about it. Angry with himself for wanting the same thing.

      But there was also something else—something much more disturbing about leaving Tamara Clarkson alone in the lounge. She’d seen Murphy, brightened at the sight of him. Based on how alike the cousins looked, she’d thought he was Kyle, didn’t she? Murphy might as well be the one ditching her for all she knew, and that didn’t sit right with him. Not at all.

      Ironic, huh? He would love to go back in there, to talk with her and see where things led, to be Kyle for just one night, but he couldn’t.

      “If she’d been my date…” Murphy said, trailing off.

      “You’d what?” Kyle said, challenging him.

      Images ran through his head: boots, skin-on-skin, sighs…

      But the good guy in Murphy shut the fantasy machine down in the face of taking care of business. As usual.

      Still, his body throbbed, unrelenting in its desire.

      “I’d do the right thing,” Murphy finished, the words flavorless and drab, not halfway near what he would really like to say. “Tell me, what’s so wrong with spending an hour with her? Just one goddamned hour?”

      “It’s not that. It’s…” Kyle ran a hand through his short dark hair. “I hate seeing the СКАЧАТЬ