Which meant she had no penalty and they all had to count the points against themselves.
“Oh, that was sneaky!” Dan exclaimed, pointing his finger at her. “Damn you, Brookie!”
She burst out laughing. “Brookie? No one has called me that since I was nine!”
Raelynn joined in, and Cole raised an eyebrow. “Brookie,” he said, his smooth voice teasing.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warned, leveling him with a glare.
He grinned and sat back in his chair. “Deal again. I need to redeem myself.”
At some point they switched to playing rummy and Raelynn got up to make popcorn. Finally, about midnight, Raelynn and Dan decided to call it a night.
“You’re sure you don’t want to stay here?” Cole asked, frowning. The apartment over the garage wasn’t powered by the generator, so they’d be going to a dark home.
“We’ve got flashlights and blankets.” Rae winked at him. “Don’t you worry about us. We won’t get cold.”
Brooklyn snorted and that set everyone laughing again. The pair bundled up in raincoats and headed out into the storm to make the short trek to their apartment.
“I had fun,” Brooklyn said. Her brain was a little fuzzy from the wine, but the evening had been long and there’d been more sipping than drinking. It was a pleasant, warm feeling brought on by the excellent shiraz and the company.
“Me, too,” Cole said. “Way more than I usually do. Cutthroat hearts was so much better than gallery openings and charity benefits.”
“Oh, that sounds dull as dirt,” she remarked.
“It is, most of the time.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and tilted his head as he studied her. “Is this what normal people do on a Saturday night?”
“Around here? As often as not. Maybe a movie. Or watching the hockey game on TV.”
“That sounds heavenly.”
“Oh, be serious.”
He pushed away from the counter and came to her. She was in the midst of picking up dirty glasses from the table and he stayed her motions with a hand on her wrist. “No, I mean it, Brooklyn. I’m so glad you came here tonight. You have this talent for making people at home no matter where you are.”
Heat rushed into her face, both from the praise and from the intimate touch on her arm. “Thank you,” she said, working hard to accept the compliment and not brush it off. He was being earnest, and she respected that.
And his gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and clung there, while her pulse leaped and her breath quickened. They shouldn’t kiss again. It would muddy the waters. And yet...she wanted to. Tonight their relationship had changed. They were no longer casual acquaintances. She’d shared something personal with him, and he’d invited her into his home. They’d laughed together. T
rash-talked over cards. They were real friends now.
Friends who apparently also had this buzz of attraction humming between them.
She was the one who made the first move. It only took a step for her to be a breath away from him. She held a wineglass in each hand and was glad of it, or else she might have put her arms around his neck and drawn him close. But she did lift her chin, a silent invitation, and met his gaze evenly. Cole Abbott surprised her, and in the nicest way. Maybe this would complicate things. But she’d had enough shiraz to lose a bit of caution where Cole was concerned.
“Brooklyn,” he murmured. “Be sure.”
And still she held his gaze, even though inside she was trembling.
He leaned forward. It didn’t take much, and his lips touched hers. At the first contact her eyelids fluttered closed, and she focused on the feel of his lips. How could they be firm and yet so soft at the same time? He tasted slightly of the scotch from earlier, warm and mellow and expensive. His hand curled around the nape of her neck and his fingertips rubbed the tight tendons there, so perfectly that she nearly moaned with pleasure.
But she wouldn’t. Because kissing was one thing, but losing control was another, and she was not going to lose control. Not tonight. This felt too fragile. Too...new. Different even from their interlude on the beach—deeper somehow.
“You taste good,” he murmured, nipping at her lips.
“So do you.”
They kissed a while longer, not rushing, until there was a whine at her feet.