LITMIR.BIZ

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rigid, and beneath that California glow he could see her cheeks pinking up.

      She still didn’t want to talk about it.

      “It’s not what you think.” He caught her hand before she could tidy any more and dragged it to his lap in the hopes that her attention followed.

      “Oh, I’m sure it is.”

      “The thing is—and this is pretty selfish of me—I need things to be good between us. And be honest. You don’t really owe it to me to listen to my explanations...”

      “You really have nothing to explain.” This time, catching her hand didn’t settle her down and her voice rose a little as she looked everywhere but at him. “I don’t blame you. I’m not mad. It was all my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I put you into an unwinnable situation because I was young and stupid. Inexperienced in reading people’s intentions...”

      “Grace?”

      “You’ve become really good at it, not that I blame you. How else are you going to keep out of those kinds of situations, especially now that you’re on the Freebie List of at least seventy percent of the married women in North America, and probably a significant number of women abroad?”

      “Stop.”

      “Barring sexual preferences, of course. Oh, then probably men too. I just couldn’t even ballpark a figure on that one.”

      “Grace, I wanted you,” he blurted out, his heart suddenly thundering in his ears, and his confession probably carried halfway across the restaurant. The waiter arrived right then and wordlessly placed the plate between them, then placed the silverware and left.

      Grace rolled the hand that he held, not pulling away but as if she couldn’t dispel the tension in her body unless she moved something.

      “Take a bite of this thing. Strawberry. Chocolate brownie thing. Cream. Get all of it. One big bite.” He kept her hand, and she still didn’t pull away, but she also didn’t look at him, focusing heavily on the dessert instead.

      “I’m eating more than one bite of that,” she finally said, and when he let go of her hand, she reached for her spoon.

      “You don’t have anything to say about my declaration?”

      She glanced up, an uneasy smile on her face now. One of her hands slipped up to cover her collarbone protectively, then gave it a little rub. “You mean besides I don’t believe you?”

      “You think I’d yell that in a crowded restaurant if it was a lie?”

      “I think...you’re trying to make things right.” She chose her words slowly and carefully, he could see, but the self-comforting actions had already started. “And I appreciate that, but you don’t have to.”

      He reached over and pulled her hand from her chest, once more holding it in his own as the other fiddled listlessly with her spoon.

      “What are you doing?”

      “Comforting you,” he murmured. “You covered your jugular notch, it’s a self-comforting technique. Women often do that when they’re feeling unsettled or emotionally unsafe, while men usually rub the back of the neck... There are other things that could be called tells. Like when you got out of the pool and you saw me there, your feet were pointed toward the closest door, and I knew you wanted to run.”

      “I wanted to go to the locker room and get dressed. And please don’t do that,” she muttered, bouncing the spoon in her fingers, having yet to use it for anything useful.

      “Don’t hold your hand?”

      “Don’t tell me what I’m feeling based on what my extremities are doing!”

      “Fine. How about I tell you this instead: I wanted to drag you into that apartment, tear off every scrap of black lace, and make sure that you could never forget me. That’s the truth.” It was still the truth, but not one he was going to admit. He still wanted her in a way that defied logic, in a way he still had to fight his way through even when she was quarreling with him. “But because I couldn’t have what I wanted—which was you, in case you’re not paying good enough attention—I tried to forget it. To forget you. But I never didn’t want you, Grace. You didn’t read me wrong.”

      The spoon she bounced on her finger slipped and clattered off the table and onto the floor. She didn’t reach for it; instead, she finally looked him in the eyes again, the kind of measuring look that at least said he had her complete attention. She was trying to decide what she thought.

      “You were off-limits. I wasn’t kidding when I said that your home and family were my safe place.” She had to believe him. These confessions weren’t easy, and if they were for nothing? “Or how much you all meant to me. Nick is my best friend, I love your family like my own. More than my own. They never measured up when they were around. It wasn’t a rejection, I just didn’t know how to do it right. You weren’t the only one who was young and stupid. I may be older, but I’m definitely not the smarter of the two of us.”

      His heart beat so hard his lungs felt battered.

      “There was a girl at the apartment with you. I only realized it as I was running off and I heard her call out to you.”

      “That girl?” He stopped, trying to recall who it was. Yes, there had been a girl... “You’re going to call me a pig, but I actually can’t remember her name. I sent her home right after you left.” He let go of her hand and retrieved his own spoon. Once he’d got some dessert on it, he held the spoon to her lips to distract her.

      Her lips parted and she leaned forward, taking his spoon into her mouth, her warm brown eyes never leaving his. He could feel the slow seductive movement of her tongue across the bowl of the spoon before he slid it back through her closed lips. Good God, he was getting too wrapped up in the idea that this was a date. His heart sped up for an entirely different reason.

      “She wasn’t the girl I wanted that night.” His voice went hoarse and he had to clear his throat to add, “So I sent her away, and spent a long, miserable night, staring at the ceiling and waiting for Nick to get back from his date.”

      Here beside her, the goose bumps racing down her arms were impossible to miss. He ran the back of one knuckle down her arm, then shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her, as much to warm her as to help his own willpower—hide that soft golden skin beckoning him. And maybe break the sudden heavy, sensual atmosphere that had descended on them. It had to go if he wanted to hold on to any scrap of his sanity.

      No more feeding her or touching her. He needed to get the atmosphere back to a more playful, jovial mood. He took a bite for himself, an excuse to make himself stop gazing into her eyes. “Him getting back? Made things worse because your brother always seems to pick up screamers.”

      “Oh, God, I don’t need those details,” she said, laughing a little as she pulled the jacket around her and snuggled in, then focused back on him, latching onto what he’d said. “I didn’t misread you. You wanted me?”

      “I’m an idiot, but I’m not that big an idiot. Of course I did. You’re...” He stopped again. “You’re great.” Great. Not perfect, he wouldn’t say perfect. His heart felt too big for him in that moment. Enlarged. Sluggish. Sore. It all felt too big for him.

      If he’d taken her up on it that night, maybe he’d be able to ignore that want now, but that wasn’t Grace’s style. Maybe she didn’t even want him anymore the way he wanted her.

      She shifted in her seat, turning more toward him. Open, inviting. Those walls were coming down. That had to be good. It was almost too much to hope that they could return to being friends.

      “I spent the whole night thinking of what I wished I could have done differently.” She whispered her own confession.

      “Just one night?” he asked, thankful for the opening to try and get things back on less shaky ground. “I spent considerably more time than that.”

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