To Die For

“No,” I said stonily.

He moved closer, so close his naked body was pressed against me as he worked the suds through my hair. “Then I won’t tell you. One day you’ll want to know, and we’ll talk about it then.”

He was the most exasperating man I’d ever seen. I clamped my teeth together to keep from asking him to tell me.

Frustration and resentment built, and finally I relieved it by saying, “You’re such an asshole jerk.”

He laughed and pushed my head under the shower.

Chapter Eight

I don’t know how I ended up going to dinner with him. Actually, I do. He wouldn’t leave.

I had to eat, and I was starving. So after I got out of the shower, I totally ignored him while I dried my hair and got ready, which actually doesn’t take all that long because I didn’t bother with anything more than the basic makeup-mascara and lipstick. The summer heat meant I’d just sweat off anything more, so why go to the trouble?

He irritated me no end by actually bumping me away from the bathroom sink with his hip so he could shave. I stared at him openmouthed, because that just isn’t the way things work. He looked at me in the mirror and winked. In a snit, I marched into the bedroom and threw on some clothes, which again didn’t take long because I didn’t bring much in the first place, and what I did bring was color coordinated. Now that I wasn’t in a fog of lust, I saw a small black duffel sitting open on the floor at the foot of the bed; that was evidently where the razor and shaving cream came from.

Come to think of it, the closet was fuller…

I whirled and opened the closet again. Yes, pushed to the side were a pair of jeans and a polo shirt.

I grabbed them off the hangers and turned to stuff them back into that duffel where they belonged. He came out of the bathroom in time to say, “Thanks for getting these out for me,” as he took them from my hands and put them on.

That was when I realized he was out of control, and the best thing I could do was escape.

While he was pulling on his jeans, I rushed through the living room and grabbed my bag and keys on the way out. A rental sedan-a white Saturn-was parked beside the truck, another little detail I’d missed in my earlier delirium. I opened the truck door and slid behind the steering wheel… and just kept on sliding, pushed by his big body as he forcibly took my place behind the wheel.

I shrieked and tried to push him out; when he didn’t budge, I pulled my feet up and pushed with them, too. I’m strong for a woman, but he was like a rock sitting there. And the jackass was smiling.

“Going somewhere?” he asked as he neatly filched the keys from the floorboard where I’d dropped them.

“Yes,” I said, and opened the passenger door. I was sliding out when he caught me under both arms and hauled me back into the truck.

“There are two ways we can do this,” he said calmly. “You can sit there like a good girl, or I can handcuff you. Which do you choose?”

“That isn’t a choice,” I said indignantly. “That’s an ultimatum. Neither is what I want to do!”

“Those’re the only two alternatives I’m offering. Look at it this way: you put me to the trouble of chasing after you, so you’re damned lucky I’m giving you even this much of a choice.”

“Hah! You didn’t have to follow me and you know it. You had no reason other than being an arrogant jackass for telling me not to leave town, so don’t act so put upon. You got laid, didn’t you? I didn’t notice you acting like I was a lot of trouble when you were tossing me on the bed.”

He reached across me and grabbed the seat belt, pulling it around to buckle it. “I’m not the only person in this truck who got laid. Fun was had. Rocks were got off. It was a mutual thing.”

“Which shouldn’t have happened. Casual sex is stupid.”

“Agreed. But what’s between us isn’t casual.”

“I keep telling you there is no ‘us.’ ”

“Sure there is. You just don’t want to admit it yet.” He started the truck and put it in gear. “Nice truck, by the way. It surprised me. You strike me as a luxury-car kind of person.”

I loudly cleared my throat, and he looked at me with raised brows. I stared pointedly at his seat belt, which he hadn’t fastened. He grunted and put the truck back in park. “Yes, ma’am,” he said while he buckled himself in.

As he backed out of the driveway I returned to the argument. “See? You don’t know what kind of person I am. I like driving pickups. You really don’t know anything at all about me, so therefore we have nothing between us except for physical attraction. That makes the sex casual.”

“I beg to differ. Casual sex is scratching an itch, and nothing more.”

“Bingo! My itch has been scratched. You can go now.”

“Are you always like this when your feelings get hurt?”

I set my jaw and stared out the windshield. I wished he hadn’t realized that hurt feelings were behind my hostility and resistance to him. You have to care about someone before he can hurt your feelings, because otherwise what he said or did wouldn’t even blip on the old radar screen. I didn’t want to care about him; I didn’t want to care about what he did or whom he saw, if he was eating properly or getting enough sleep. I didn’t want to be hurt again, because this man could hurt me big-time if I let him get really close. Jason had hurt me bad enough, but Wyatt could break my heart.

He reached out and put his hand on the back of my neck, gently massaging. “I’m sorry,” he said gently.

I could tell I was going to have trouble with him when it came to my neck. He was like a vampire, going straight for it whenever he wanted to influence me. The apology wasn’t playing fair, either. I wanted him to crawl, and here he was undermining my resolve with that simple apology. The man was sneaky.

The best thing to do was fight fire with fire, and tell him exactly where he stood and what the problem was. I reached up and removed his hand from the back of my neck, because I couldn’t think straight while he was touching me there.

“Okay, here it is,” I said steadily, still focusing on what was outside rather than in the truck with me. “How can I trust you not to hurt me again? You cut and ran instead of telling me what the problem was, instead of working on it or giving me a chance to work on it. My marriage failed because my husband, instead of telling me something was wrong and working with me to fix it, started running around on me. So I’m not real big on trying to build relationships with people who aren’t willing to put some effort into maintaining it and repairing the breakdowns. You do that for a car, right? So my standard is, a man has to care as much about me as he does about his car. You failed.”

He was silent as he absorbed all of that. I expected him to start arguing, explaining how the situation looked from his side of the fence, but he didn’t. “So it’s a trust thing,” he finally said. “Good. That’s something I can work with.” He slanted a hard look at me. “That means you’ll be seeing a lot of me. I can’t earn your trust back if I’m not around. So from now on, we’re together. Got it?”

I blinked. Somehow I hadn’t foreseen he would take a lack of trust and make it seem as if that meant I had to be in a relationship with him so he could re-earn my trust. I’m telling you, the man is diabolical.