Jacked Up by Erin McCarthy Read Free Book Online

the polka. With all the jumping and running and bouncing, Nolan felt more like a kid on a pogo stick than a man on a date with a woman who was like lighter fluid to his charcoal. When she had looked him in the eye and said she wanted to see how he tasted, he had almost looked down at his crotch to see the flames he was sure had to be shooting out from his jeans. She was sexy with a capital S.
    Yet she didn’t seem to think she was, which amazed him.
    She also didn’t seem particularly happy in her life, so he was glad that this insanity they were engaging in seemed to be amusing her. Without their discussing it, she had taken the lead in the dance and was spinning him around in circles on the makeshift dance floor in front of the gazebo. Since he had no clue how to polka, he was fine with following.
    The thing was, she didn’t seem to know how to polka either. She was definitely making it up as she went, which could explain why they kept running into each other.
    “Go left!” she screamed, breathless and laughing.
    “My left or your left?” he asked, confused as hell.
    As they went in opposite directions, they lost their grip on each other. Nolan ending up almost plowing down a kid and Eve wound up spinning off into a bush.
    “I guess your left,” he said with a grin as he pulled her out of the foliage.
    She was laughing, her hair falling in her eyes. For the first time, he noticed she had dimples that appeared when she laughed, making her even more adorable.
    “Whoops. Sorry. My bad.”
    The band was winding up their number. “Thank you! Thank you!” the accordion player yelled as Eve and Nolan and the rest of the audience clapped. “And thank you to our dancers.”
    A little girl who had been traipsing around stopped, looked out at the crowd, and curtsied. No self-esteem issues there, which was nice to see.
    Then Eve blew him away by giving her own little curtsy, though hers was directed at the band.
    “Sassy,” he told her. “I think you should go on tour with them.”
    “Should that be my new career? Polka band groupie. I don’t think the cash flow would be as high as you’d think it would be though.”
    “You’re probably right.” They reached the picnic table where their funnel cake was coagulating. He took a sip of his beer. “Warm. Time for a new one.”
    “I’ll drink mine warm.” She took her own sip then shrugged. “It’s not warm. It’s just not ice cold. Though I’m warm from all that dancing.”
    And lo and behold, she set her beer back down on the table and peeled off her sweatshirt. Underneath she was wearing a black tank top. That was it. Nothing but a stretchy shirt that clung to her breasts. Lord have mercy on his horny soul.
    “Whew, that’s better.”
    Oh, it was better and it was worse all at the same time.
    She didn’t seem to notice that his tongue was hanging to his knees because she just continued their conversation.
    “I learned to drink warm beer in college. I was too broke to let a little thing like room temperature beer stop me. No wasting the suds.”
    “So you went to college? Where at?”
    “Clemson. First one in my family to graduate from college.”
    She sounded proud of that fact, as she should be. “How about Evan and Elec? They go to Clemson, too?”
    “Nah. There was no reason to go to college when they were already both driving in the truck series by eighteen. But I was supposed to learn a skill. How about you?”
    “I didn’t go to college. With nine kids, there was no money for that and I wasn’t ambitious enough to pay for it myself.” College had sounded like fun actually, but he wasn’t that big on learning in a classroom. It hadn’t been the right choice for him. He liked to get his hands dirty in the real world.
    “You have
eight
siblings?” She sounded amazed and horrified.
    Nolan pitched his beer in the nearest trash can and gestured to start walking. As they strolled to the beer tent, he told her, “Yep. Seven sisters, one brother.