Honeytrap by CRYSTAL GREEN Page A

before I’d backed myself into a corner with Rex and needed to come out spitting fire. At any rate, it sounded like Micah was backing off now, thank God.
    â€œSo does this mean you’re throwing in the towel? No more bet?”
    He peered up at the sky, like there were answers there, then looked at me again. Every time he did that, one more piece of my willpower flew off, like I had a runaway train inside of myself that was falling apart mile by mile.
    â€œI would hate to waste my time on you,” he said. “We never know how much we have in the first place.”
    â€œHow philosophical.”
    â€œAnd I didn’t even need to go to college to get that way.”
    Down the road, an engine roared. Deacon and Darwin getting restless.
    â€œI think your cousins are calling,” I said, but that perverse side of me didn’t want him to go yet. He brought something to the air that wasn’t usually there—the sound of his voice, the trilling awareness riding my skin. Physical tremors that were getting more addictive by the second.
    â€œThey’re trying to c—” He stopped himself, grinning. “
Block
me from winning the bet that they think is still happening.”
    He’d almost said “cockblocked.” Again, the word “manners” popped into my head. Hah, right. So he didn’t get vulgar in front of women? Congratulations. Still, I kind of liked that he was handling me with his own type of kid gloves. It
was
a little flattering, just like that bet had been.
    â€œWell,” he said. “There it is then.”
    â€œYeah, there it is.”
    â€œI hope you had some fun tonight and aren’t too insulted by me.”
    â€œI’m not . . . insulted. And at least the people here treated me better than most lately.” Heck, no one had seemed to care what’d happened with Rex. No one had even commented on how Micah had ambled right up to me after he’d roared up in his Camaro, like he’d had me marked for him.
    How tweaked would Rex’s friends have been if they’d seen me with Micah? Then again, why should their opinion mean anything?
    I hated that they still mattered.
    He dropped his hands from his pockets. “Glad to hear everyone welcomed you. You know, it could be that someone told everyone he knows in this town to have some respect for you. But that might be just another rumor.”
    Was he saying that he’d asked Jefferson, Jimmy, Reese, and all the rest not to quiz me about Rex as a favor to him? No way.
    He went on. “Or maybe you’re not used to hanging out with decent types like these people.”
    â€œOr like you?” That’d just popped out.
    â€œI’ve already suggested being with me,” he said. “But you’ve made it pretty clear that I can’t have a thing to do with you.”
    â€œThat’s because . . .” God, might as well come out with it. “First of all, you’re not my type.” Before he could refute that, I added the the real truth. “Also, I can’t afford to have everyone thinking that I’ve . . . I don’t know. Allied with you or something. That I put you up to messing with Jadyn because I was being a vindictive bitch to Rex.”
    But I had been. I’d turned into one at college, surprising even myself.
    â€œThen it’s settled.” He started to walk backward, away from me. “Never the twains shall meet with us. Or however they say it. You stay on your side of town and I’ll stay on mine.”
    â€œI still have to get my mom’s lawn mower from your shop.”
    â€œYou get one free pass, then that’s it, Carson.” He smiled.
    I melted.
    Then he turned around and walked away, leaving me with a prime view of that tight butt in those jeans, those wide shoulders and back with a T-shirt that stretched over well-worked muscles.
    Could it really be that easy to get rid of