LITMIR.BIZ

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him. The weight of her hair against her shoulders reminded her that he already saw her in a different light.

      “What were your parents like?” she asked, when they’d finished their main course and were having coffee on his deck. It overlooked the well-landscaped backyard. In the center of the yard was a large pool with a waterfall on the far end.

      “Ward and June Cleaver. Are you old enough to know who they are?” he asked.

      “I think everyone has seen Leave It to Beaver on Nick@Nite.”

      “Very funny. My mom and dad were the perfect parents, doting, supportive, strict when they needed to be.”

      “So why haven’t you settled down?” she asked. It was the one thing she’d always wondered about him. He seemed so perfect—what was stopping him from committing to one of the perfect women he dated?

      “Why haven’t you?” he asked.

      She swallowed hard. This was why she didn’t do close relationships. Sooner or later you had to talk about your past. Small talk only lasted so long. “I didn’t grow up with the perfect parents.”

      “What kind of childhood did you have?” he asked.

      It was an innocent question. She wanted to counter with a change of topic—something to turn the spotlight back on him—but she wasn’t going to, because she did want to get to know Adam better. And that thing he’d said earlier about trust had struck a nerve. Here was a man she thought she could trust.

      “I don’t know. One like most kids. I think you’re the exception, Adam.” In her small town, he would have been the exception. They’d had rich kids like everywhere else, but no one who’d grown up the way Adam had. Traveling every season, going to trendy ski resorts and all-inclusive Caribbean getaways instead of riding in the backseat of a cramped car to some dreary relative’s house several hours away.

      “How?” he asked, his interest genuine.

      “Just that a lot of parents weren’t that supportive of kids in my neighborhood.”

      “You’re from a small town, right?”

      “Yes. A poor one. Most families really scrambled to make a living.”

      “Yours?”

      “Yes.”

      “What did your folks do?”

      She should never have started this conversation. How could she talk about being deprived when her father had been a preacher and had provided a nice house for her? How could she explain, without sounding like a whiner, exactly the way she’d been deprived? How could she explain what she herself never wanted to understand?

      “My dad’s a preacher.”

      “So you’re the rebellious preacher’s daughter?”

      “No. Not a rebel. I prefer to just blend into the walls.”

      “I’ve noticed.”

      “Well I must be doing something wrong, because you weren’t supposed to notice.”

      “I didn’t until today.”

      She smiled at the way he said it. Like it was an important thing. That having noticed her had made a difference to him.

      Was it because of the story?

      “I’ve noticed you before.”

      “Really? Tell me what you observed.”

      She took her time trying to figure out how to tell him what she’d seen in him without revealing how deeply she’d studied him. Now that she was here with him, she felt a little silly that she’d given him a starring role in her fantasies without really knowing the man behind the good looks.

      Adam knew he was pushing. But the more he learned about Grace, the more he realized that his knowing about her fantasies was going to wound her. She gave off the image of being so superefficient and competent that only tonight had he glimpsed the vulnerabilities she had underneath.

      He didn’t want her to think he’d exploited those weaknesses. And guilt ate at him. Omissions were lies, he thought. Hell, he knew that omissions were the biggest kind of lies.

      But he wanted to hear from her lips that she found him attractive. That he hadn’t imagined the story that he’d reread during the day about five times. He knew exactly what she liked. How she wanted a man who was forceful in the bedroom but sensitive and understanding outside.

      To be honest, that wasn’t how he normally operated with a woman, but everything about Grace was different. She made him want to be more. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t explain it to himself. But tonight, with a cool breeze in the air and the fragrance of the blooming vegetation around his pool filling the air, he didn’t care.

      He didn’t want to think of anything other than this woman and how he could convince her she’d be safe in his arms. And he wanted her in his arms. He wanted her mouth under his with no dinner buzzer about to go off. No crowded restaurant of people too close to them. Just the two of them and the night and nothing between them.

      “Come on, Grace, what did you think about me the first time we met?” he asked, having the feeling that she was going to just keep quiet and let the conversation die an awkward death.

      “It’s complicated,” she said, leaving the deck and walking toward the pool. She stopped by a potted hibiscus and bent to smell the bloom.

      She ran whenever he pushed too far into her barriers. The ones she used to keep everyone at arm’s length. She was subtle and only someone who spent a significant amount of time with her as he had today would notice it.

      “I understand complicated. Is it such a bad impression that you’re worried about hurting my feelings?”

      “Give me a break. You must know that no one has a bad first impression of you.”

      “I don’t know that, Gracie. You won’t tell me what you thought.”

      She took a deep breath and faced him, her eyes alive with an emotion he couldn’t name. “I thought, this man is someone who knows how to really live his life.”

      He was taken aback by her comment. To be honest, he’d been fishing for a compliment. Having read her story, he knew she liked his shoulders and his backside. He was chagrined to realize that he’d expected her impressions to just be physical. If they had been, he would have felt comfortable using the physical attraction between the two of them to seduce her.

      “Not what you were expecting?” she asked.

      “No,” he said. What she’d observed in him revealed what she herself was afraid she was missing. It took him a moment to identify fragility and fear as the emotions in her eyes. Grace didn’t lie, either. The knowledge made him feel protective of her.

      “Well, there it is. You also have very nice eyes.”

      She took a step closer to him. There were still a few inches of space between them, but she’d made a move toward him—the first she’d made since they met. He was a little thrown by her compliment. Nice eyes? “No one has ever mentioned that before.”

      She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Probably because they were busy ogling your physique.”

      “Ah, that’s more what I was expecting.”

      She laughed at him. But there was something in her eyes that told him she’d said it to distract him. And he let her because he already knew more of her secrets than he intended. More than she’d probably intended him to know.

      “Anything specific about my physique?” he asked, letting her turn this moment a little lighter. He had to touch her again. She’d left her hair down. The silky length of it fell around her shoulders, curling gently.

      He caught one of the curls and let it wrap around his hand and wrist, drawing her closer to him. She was short,

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