Her gaze flickered down, then boldly held mine. “No, but I don’t keep alcohol in the house.”
“It’s probably better I don’t come in,” I returned, but everything in me screamed to go inside with her.
“Coffee?” Meekly spoken in her husky voice, the offer grabbed me in the guts, and I closed my eyes.
After a deep breath and huffed exhale, I chewed on one of my lip rings, then turned my truck off. “Sure.”
Before I could help her down, she had the door open and was getting out.
“Venom, you’re fucking up,” I muttered into the empty cab. Then I followed her to the back door of the house.
“You don’t have a light back here?” I asked as I glanced around, trying to scope out the shadows. My eyes locked on her when she replied.
“Yeah, but it’s not working.”
Making a mental note to see if one of Snow’s boys could fix it before I left, I followed her inside as she flipped on lights. I stomped the snow off my boots onto the mat. We’d entered into a small, outdated kitchen. The sunflower wallpaper was faded and peeling in some spots, but the room was tidy.
She busied herself with pulling mismatched mugs from the cupboard, spooning coffee grounds in the filter she placed in the basket, and filling a coffeepot with water.
“I didn’t know anyone used real coffeepots anymore. Thought everyone had those one-cup things,” I said as I leaned against the counter watching her.
The pot was full, so she poured the water in, slid the carafe under the basket, and waited.
“That’s an unnecessary expense for me at the moment.” She crossed her arms and shrugged.
Neither one of us made small talk as we waited for the coffee to finish.
When it was done, she poured us both a cup. “What do you take in your coffee?”
“Nothing. Black is fine.”
“Of course.” She smirked, then handed me my mug. I took a cautious sip of the hot brew as I watched her do the same. She moved to the table, so I followed, sitting across from her.
“How long have you known Grams?” I asked. In all my visits, I couldn’t remember seeing her, and she wasn’t a woman anyone forgot. She was fucking little, but she had an edge to her that was sexy as fuck.
“Little over a year. Since I moved to Iowa and into my aunt’s house,” she said as she motioned around to the house we were in. I’d known she wasn’t from here by the slight twang in her voice, but now I wondered where she was from.
“Where’d you move from?” I asked.
“Texas” was her brief reply.
“So what brought you here?” I shamelessly prodded.
She set her mug down on the scratched-up round table with a clunk. “Needed a fresh start. Why don’t you live by your grandmother?”
I may not have been able to manipulate her emotions, but I could sense them like a bloodhound on a scent. Without even touching her—another strange phenomenon for me.
She was being evasive.
She was also incredibly horny, and I found myself shifting in my seat in an effort to find a little relief. It wasn’t working.
Too young.
Bad idea.
Don’t do it.
Trying to convince myself of those things was like trying to hold water in an old rusted bucket.