Dating A Cougar (18 page)

Jenna held Casey’s gaze for as long as she could, any longer and he’d see the truth about how she still felt about Seth. The relationship was over between them, but she wasn’t yet over Seth.

Casey stood. “The thing you need to know about the men in my family is we bond to the women we choose. Maybe you’re not interested in Seth anymore, but I can vouch for the fact Seth isn’t interested in anyone but you.”

Jenna smiled and stood to see him out. “If Seth was ever interested in me, I could never tell it, Casey. He mostly ignored me while I worked hard all the time to get his attention. It was emotionally exhausting and I had to stop.”

Casey nodded his acceptance of her explanation and walked to the door. He stopped at the threshold.

“So about me and your mother—if you happen to stop by your mother’s house this weekend and I just happen to be there—?” Casey asked.

“I’ll try to be an adult,” Jenna answered, biting her lip to keep from laughing. “Stop worrying. I’m sorry I got so upset when you first told me. I’m going to be okay whether it works out or you go down in flames.”

“Just for the record, I am not going down in flames. I’m a very positive thinker,” Casey told Jenna. He was thinking he positively was getting back inside Alexa first chance he got, but he wasn’t telling her daughter. “Thanks for seeing me, Jenna. I just wanted—well, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jenna said, patting his arm. “I won’t even call to harass Mama until tomorrow. That will give you the rest of the day to confess about coming to see me.”

“Gee, thanks.” Casey said with laugh. “I don’t suppose we could keep this a secret.”

“Oh, please,” Jenna said with snort. “This is way too good. Mama will be embarrassed beyond belief you came to see me about dating her. I’m not above enjoying seeing Alexa Ranger squirm. Kiss my Mama for me, Casey—if she lets you.”

Casey just sighed and walked away. His discussion with Jenna had gone better than he had anticipated, but now he had to tell Alexa what he’d done before Jenna did.

There would probably be more hell to pay with mother than with daughter.

He could only hope the makeup sex would be good.

Chapter 16

In the waiting area of Alexa’s office, Casey dropped the duffle with his clothes into one chair and himself into another. He was beat from running all over town and trying to get back to her office by noon.

There was no one manning Sydney’s desk and no activity at all anywhere. He was trying to decide what to do when he spied the intercom. Casey got up and walked to the desk to sit in Sydney’s chair, and then pressed the button.

“Yes?” Sydney said, answering.

“Honey, you need to get this intercom replaced. You’re starting to sound like Sydney,” Casey said, grinning as he listened to Sydney laugh.

“Alexa, I think this heavy breather is your pervert, not mine,” Sydney told her.

Casey laughed, and yelled through the intercom, “I hope like hell there’s not a room full of people back there.”

“Relax, Gunny. Get your ass back here. I’m tired of trying to cheer this woman up. She’s been nothing but gloom and doom all morning without you.”

“Right away,” Casey said, releasing the intercom and rising.

He walked slowly back to the office and found Sydney and Alexa at the conference table pouring over notes and what looked like advertisements.

“I’m doing it again,” Casey said. “You can tell me to wait, you know. I don’t mean to keep interrupting your work.”

“You’re not,” Sydney said firmly. “I’m running her off and handling the rest of this myself. Alexa’s too depressed to handle anything today. Take her home and put a smile on her face.”

“I am still in the room, Sydney. You don’t have to arrange
everything
in my life,” Alexa said, looking up from her work, her eyes softening when they landed on Casey.

“You need a keeper and Carter seems to want the job. Be nice to him, Alexa.”

Sydney started gathering up the papers on the table, stacking them in neat, orderly piles.

Casey smiled at Alexa as he walked to the conference table.

“If you can absorb the money loss on your investment, the offer I made you on our first date is still good,” Casey said, coming over to run a hand down her hair.

Alexa looked up at Casey’s twinkling eyes and laughed. “No. I need the money. It keeps me in sexy vehicles so can I lure younger men to my bed.”

“Wow, tough call. Hard to believe any guy would look at you and only see a great car in his future,” Casey said, piling the various stacks into Sydney’s arms.

“Alexa has been a sour mood since she came in without you this morning. So I’ll just leave you two alone with your innuendo and head to my desk. Alexa, see you on Monday. You can be late. I moved all the morning meetings to after lunch. Have a good weekend, you two.”

Sydney vanished out the door.

Alexa wilted in her seat. She put her arms on the table and laid her head on them. “I need a nap.”

Casey looked at her. “Hmmm…are you too tired to fight with me?”

“Why? Did you do something in the last four hours that might make me want to hurt you?” Alexa asked, but without much venom.

Casey walked to the other side of the table and sat. He reached across and could barely touch her fingertips. Stretching a couple of times in different directions to be sure, he finally settled in the chair.

She laughed. “What are you doing?”

“Just making sure you can’t reach me.” Casey leaned back and grinned.

“Spit it out,” Alexa ordered. “You have the guiltiest expression I’ve ever seen.”

“Do you want the band-aid peeled off slowly, or should I just rip it off?” he asked, stalling.

“How bad is the news?” Alexa asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I told Jenna about us,” Casey said, watching the information being processed and anger light up her eyes.

Oh hell, he thought.

“Look, I didn’t want to get caught at your house and it be one of those awkward moments where Jenna rushes out crying, or worse, yells at you. So I thought I’d just go see her and let her yell at me first, maybe get it out of her system,” Casey explained.

Alexa rose from the table and walked across the room to the farthest wall, as far away from Casey as she could get. Several minutes ticked by while she tried to think of a rational way of telling a man who gave her the best sex of her life to go to hell. Nothing came to mind, but she was still working on it.

“
What
were you thinking?” Alexa demanded, turning to glare at him across the room. “Do you honestly believe I need anyone’s permission to sleep with a man, much less my daughter’s? You obviously don’t know me if that’s what you think.”

“That’s not what I thought,” Casey agreed, trying to keep his tone soothing. “I just thought I would spare you criticism about me. I wanted Jenna to know this was more my idea than yours. If she was going to be upset about it, I wanted her to be upset at me, not at you.”

“Well, don’t do me any more favors,” Alexa spat. “I wasn’t worried about telling her. I was just waiting until I was sure it was going to be necessary.”

“That’s why I did it. I thought it was necessary,” Casey said, wincing as he realized too late his statement was like pouring gasoline on a fire. Just because he thought it was necessary didn’t mean Alexa did, but damn it, she should be agreeing.

“I didn’t mean to butt in between you and your daughter. I just didn’t want to be secretive about dating you. I wanted to spend the weekend with a clear conscience about your family.” Casey crossed his arms. He could be as stubborn as she about something this important to both of them. She needed to get used to it.

“I’m so angry I could throw something at you, and at the same time, I’m incredibly embarrassed you would do this behind my back,” Alexa said, crossing her arms.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Casey said. “Jenna even warned me you’d feel that way.”

“Great. Even my daughter gets that much. Why can’t you? What else did Jenna say?” Alexa asked, throwing her hand up on the wall, leaning on it with face buried and with her back turned to Casey.

“Jenna said she wouldn’t call to give you a hard time until tomorrow. She told me I had the afternoon to confess,” Casey said softly, worried when Alexa wouldn’t even look at him.

“Did you tell her I’d slept with you?” Alexa asked.

“Give me some credit,” Casey said harshly, “I told her I wanted to date you and I hoped she’d be okay with you if we did.”

“You asked my daughter’s
permission
to date me? I’m fifty damn years old!” Alexa declared, her voice squeaking. She did turn back then, shock on her face. All anger was wiped away in utter disbelief.

Casey couldn’t help but laugh and wished he could take a picture of how she looked. He was sure Alexa would laugh about it one day.

“No. Hell no. That’s what I said to Jenna when she asked the same damn thing. I told her I liked you. I was not asking her permission to date you.”

“I’ll never hear the end of this. She’ll tell Regina and Lauren. She might even report it to the papers just to spite me. Oh, dear God.” Alexa put her face in her hands and shook her head back and forth.

Casey laughed because he couldn’t help it. “You’re being too melodramatic. Don’t you even want to know what she said about us?”

“No,” Alexa said through her hands.

Casey laughed more. “She said she would be okay with us dating if you were okay with it. She said she loved you.”

“I love her too,” Alexa said, lifting her face and dropping her hands to her side. “You, I hate right now.” The last was delivered with an icy blue glare.

Casey grinned, trying to stifle a laugh, but lost.

“Fair enough,” he said on a sigh. “How long are you going to hate me?”

“Until I get over being angry,” Alexa told him righteously.

Casey pushed himself up from the table and walked slowly to her. She backed up against the wall.

“It would not be smart to touch me right now,” she warned, blue eyes flashing, sparking with temper still.

Casey laughed nervously, but kept walking closer. “You already know I’m more brave than smart. I’ve apologized. Now I want makeup sex.”

“You are out of your freaking mind. I’m serious, Casey.
Keep your distance
,” Alexa ordered.

Casey walked up until he was mere inches away from her. “I’m your hero, Alexa. I deserve a hero’s reward, so I want a kiss.”

“You’re my nemesis, you mean,” Alexa corrected, tossing her head and sending her hair flying. “I am not kissing you.”

“Hurt me then, because it’s the only way you’re stopping me from kissing you,” Casey said, moving in closer still as Alexa all but climbed the wall behind her trying to escape. He wanted to tell her how arousing it was and how it just made him more determined. She would have knocked him flat for sure if he did.

“I’m sorry for embarrassing you,” he whispered, fighting to keep his hands to himself. “But not for talking to Jenna. It was something I felt I needed to do. I never meant to hurt you.”

Casey leaned in and placed his lips on her neck, just above the pulse that pounded furiously still. He brushed his mouth back and forth all the while inhaling the ginger and peaches scent that mixed so well with her heat. His body took the final step into her when there simply was no choice about it. He groaned in relief to finally be touching her again.

Alexa drew in a breath when Casey pressed into her. Indignation warred with arousal, but ultimately lost to the simple need to feel him next to her again. She swore softly, damning him to hell, but let Casey press his hardness into her softness, closing her eyes on her own sigh of relief.

Casey felt her body give in to his but wisely said nothing. Instead, he brought trembling hands to her waist and held her hips while he pressed into her.

“Am I still invited for the weekend?” he asked quietly.

“Would it matter if I said no?” Alexa asked in return, the sting of surrender making her tongue sharp.

“Yes,” Casey said. “If the invitation is rescinded, I’m taking you now—up against this wall if necessary. I’m dying to be with you again. I’ve had a taste and I want more. Lots more, but I’ll settle for what I can get.”

Alexa thought about it. And it wasn’t easy to think with him rocking against her. He stopped rocking when she didn’t answer after thirty seconds.

One of his hands moved to the snap of her jeans, and a few seconds later Casey’s hand was sliding down the front of her, inside her clothes. Then two of his fingers unerringly found their way inside her, sliding through the wetness both of them knew belonged to him.

Alexa arched against his hand and he all but lifted her up as he stroked. He groaned at her response.

“Casey, stop that,” Alexa ordered.

“I wanted to do this in the limo,” he whispered, enjoying her wetness, thrilling with each arch against his palm. “I had a hard time talking myself out of it.”

“Stop teasing me. You can come for the weekend,” she said finally, her breathing hitched and unsteady.

“Okay,” Casey agreed. “But you can do that now while I watch. I owe you for making you so mad after our first night together. I didn’t mean it to work out this way. I’m sorry as hell about it.”

“I can’t have an orgasm in the office,” Alexa protested. “I—“

What she was going to say was lost as Casey put his mouth to her neck again and sucked there while she squirmed. Then he moved to her mouth, his tongue stroking in time with his fingers.

Less than a minute later, she exploded violently in his hand. He lifted up gently, his fingers strong inside her, and held her throbbing against his palm as wave after wave rolled through her.

“God, I love that short fuse of yours,” Casey said. “Take me home with you, Alexa.”

“Okay,” she said, dazed with lust, dizzy with climax.

Casey looked at her dazed face, groaned, and took her mouth in a searing kiss. He eased his hand out of her clothes, zipped, and snapped her back as if nothing had happened. He kissed her hard then and stepped away quickly.

“I need to go wash my hand before I’m tempted to lick my fingers. If I do that, we’ll end up locking the office door and staying here all afternoon. This floor would be hell on my hip. Be right back.”

Casey walked away to her restroom.

Alexa heard the water running in the sink as she slid bonelessly to the floor.

“Holy hell,” she said to the empty room. How was she ever going to win an argument with a man that calmed her with orgasms?

When Casey came back, he could barely stop laughing long enough to help Alexa up from the floor.

Sydney’s snicker as he said good-bye to them had Alexa turning pink and wondering if she looked as guilty as she felt.

Casey pretended not to notice her pink face or Sydney’s knowing look. Instead, he picked up his duffle bag and gave Sydney a sharp salute before they left.

“If you’d stop feeling guilty about us, you wouldn’t be so embarrassed,” Casey told her, holding her hand in one of his, and his bag and cane in the other, as they stepped into the elevator.

Alexa looked at him in disgust. She closed her eyes and banged the back of her head on the elevator wall as she swore at him.