Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [50]
As they passed a sign stating the exit for Green Springs was only ten miles ahead, Sean reached to flip off the powerful stereo. “I think maybe I could use a primer.”
“What?”
“We covered so many details last night…maybe you should test me. Though, of course, there’s no question that I remember what you wear to bed.” Then, a self-satisfied tone in his voice, added, “Or that I now know exactly where your real ticklish spot is.”
Oh, boy. Annie shifted in the seat, suddenly a lot hotter than she’d been a moment before under the direct rays of the sun.
“But I don’t suppose anybody will be asking about those things.”
“Definitely not.” Glad for the chance to focus on their arrival, not how much she wanted Sean to stop and do all the things to her that he hadn’t done last night, she thought about the most crucial issues. The things a man who’d been dating her for a few months would absolutely know about.
“What are my brothers’ names?”
“Jed’s the oldest, and he’s engaged to Becca. Then Steve, who’s one year older than you and is the ladies’ man of the family.” He rattled the details off rapidly, obviously a quick study. “Randy is the baby, and he’s interested in joining the Air Force, though he hasn’t yet worked up a set of ballocks as big as yours to tell your parents that.”
She snorted, taking that as a compliment. “Right. But don’t say a word.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Hmm…what else…oh, Randy’s almost twenty-one. That’s easy to remember, since my sister’s the same age.”
That was the first time he’d mentioned a family member other than his parents, and the affectionate smile hinted at a close relationship. “Sister? Where is she?”
“Back in Ireland.”
“Do you get to see her often?”
“Almost never. Moira and I mostly keep in touch by phone and e-mail.” He was silent for a moment, then, as if he’d weighed his options and decided he could trust her with more of himself, he continued. “I had a falling out with my father several years ago and haven’t been back home since.”
“I see.”
“No, you probably don’t,” he muttered. “I can hear in your voice when you talk about them that you adore your family, even though they drive you ’round the bend.”
“When I don’t want to shove them all in a river.”
He chuckled. “Still, there’s genuine affection there.”
“But none in yours?”
He pushed his silky black hair off his face—the wind had tugged it free of its ponytail. Oh, Lord, was her father going to have something to say about that, and the tiny gold earring flashing from one lobe. “I love my father,” he admitted, sounding as though it hurt him to say it out loud. “But affection comes with a price in my family. If you pay it, all’s well and good. If you don’t…”
“Then you have to keep in touch with your sister only by phone and e-mail.”
“That’s about it. Although whenever she has a class trip off the island, I try to arrange a business trip to meet up with her.” A wicked laugh escaped his lips. “I showed her the hot spots in Prague when she was seventeen and the strip in Amsterdam a year later.”
Annie snorted, able to picture it. “Intentionally trying to corrupt her?”
“Just trying to let her live a little, since our father and her mother have clamped down on her pretty hard because of the choices I’ve made.”
“That’s a shame.”
Although he didn’t frown or otherwise appear to regret telling her as much as he had, he immediately returned to the subject at hand. “Is your relationship with your brothers anything like that?”
“My brothers couldn’t find Prague on a map,” she muttered, then sighed at her own tone. “Sorry. That was bitchy. They’re very nice guys. Steve and I were like twins when we were kids. Practically inseparable.”
“But?”
“But,” she explained with a simple shrug of her shoulders, “they never left home. Never wanted to. Never will. Randy wants to join the service because he’s young and patriotic…but if he does it, he’ll still come back here afterward to live out the rest of his days.”
“While you couldn’t wait to go live out yours almost anywhere