To Die For

I can mess with him, right?

“Are you crying?” He definitely sounded suspicious.

“No.” That was the truth. Can I help it if the word quivered a little?

His big hand touched my face. “You are not.”

“I said I wasn’t.” Damn, did he accept nothing on face value? We definitely had an issue with trust here. How was I supposed to get away with anything?

“Yeah, but you were doing that little guilt-trip act. You know damn good and well that all you had to say at any time was ‘no’ if you really didn’t want it.”

“You sabotaged me with the neck thing. That has to stop.”

“What are you going to do, get rid of your neck?”

“Does that mean you won’t promise to leave my neck alone?”

“Are you kidding? Have I ever struck you as the type to cut my own throat?” He sounded lazily amused.

“I’m serious about not having sex. I think it’s the wrong thing to do this soon. We should have waited to see if a relationship gets going between us.”

“ ‘Gets going’?” he echoed. “Seems to me we’re halfway around the track already.”

“Not really. We haven’t left the starting line yet. We haven’t even been out on a date. This time, I mean. Two years ago doesn’t count.”

“We had dinner tonight.”

“That doesn’t count, either. You used your physical strength against me, then coerced me with threats.”

He snorted. “Like that would have stopped you from screaming your head off if you hadn’t decided you were hungry and I might as well pay for it.”

There was that, of course. Plus I was never in the least worried that he might actually hurt me. I felt remarkably safe and secure when I was with him-from everything except him, of course.

“So here’s the deal. I go out with you the way I would if we were starting all over again. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Another chance? That means no sex, because sex clouds the issue.”

“The hell it does.”

“Okay, it clouds my issues. Maybe when I get to know you better, and you get to know me, we’ll decide we don’t like each other that much, after all. Or maybe you decide you don’t like me nearly as much as I like you, because like I said, sex clouds the issue for me. Maybe men aren’t that influenced by having sex with someone, but women are. You’ll be saving me a lot of possible heartbreak if we back off and take our time with this.”

“You’re asking me to close the barn door after the horse is already out.”

“So round it up and put it back in your pants-barn, I mean.”

“That’s your point of view. In mine, it goes against every instinct to not make love to you as often as possible, because that’s how a man makes sure a woman is his.”

From his voice I could tell he was getting testy now. I sort of wished a light were on so I could read his expression, but that would have meant he’d be able to read mine, too, so I left well enough alone. “If we were that far along in our relationship, I’d agree with you.”

“From the evidence at hand, I’d say we are.”

So we were both naked and in bed together. So what?

“But we aren’t. We’re very much physically attracted to each other, but we don’t know each other. For instance, what’s my favorite color?”

“Hell, I was married for three years and I never knew her favorite color. Men don’t think about colors.”

“You don’t have to think about something to just kind of notice it.” I glossed over the fact that he’d been married before. I’d known it, of course, because his mother had told me before she ever introduced us, but I didn’t like thinking about it any more than I liked thinking about my own failed marriage. In Wyatt’s case, however, I was just plain jealous.

“Pink,” he said.

“Close, but no cigar. That’s my second favorite color.”

“Good God, you have more than one?”

“Teal.”

“Teal’s a color? I thought it was a duck.”

“Maybe the color comes from a duck. I don’t know. The point is, if we had spent a lot of time together and really gotten to know each other, you’d have noticed that I wear a lot of teal and you might have guessed it. But you couldn’t, because we haven’t spent a lot of time together.”

“The solution to that is to spend more time together.”

“Agreed. But without sex.”

“I feel as if I’m banging my head against a brick wall,” he said to the ceiling.

“I know the feeling.” I was beginning to get exasperated. “The point is, I’m afraid you’ll break my heart if I let you get too close to me. I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you and then you’ll walk away again. I want to know you’re with me every step of the way if I do fall in love with you. How can I know that if we’re having sex, when sex means so much to a woman and it doesn’t mean much more to a man than just jerking off? It’s chemistry, and it short-circuits a woman’s brain, sort of drugs her, so she doesn’t notice she’s sleeping with a rat until it’s too late.”

There was a long pause; then he said, “What if I’m already in love with you, and I’m using sex to show you that, and to get closer to you?”

“If you’d said ‘infatuated,’ I might have believed you. I repeat, you don’t really know me, therefore you can’t truly love me. We’re in lust, not love. Not yet, and maybe not ever.”

Another long pause. “I understand what you’re saying. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. Did you understand what I said, about using sex to show you I care?”

“Yes,” I said guardedly. What was he leading up to? “And I don’t agree.”

“Then we’re at a stalemate. You don’t want to have sex and I do. So let’s make a deal: any time I put the move on you, all you have to do is say no and I promise I’ll stop, regardless. I may be on top of you about to put it in, but if you say no, I’ll stop.”

“That’s not fair!” I wailed. “What’s my record so far in saying no to you?”

“Two years ago, you were two for oh. This time, it’s four-zip in my favor.”

“See! You’re two-thirds better at this than I am. I need a handicap.”

“How in hell do you handicap sex?”

“You can’t touch my neck.”

“Uh-uh. No way in hell are you putting your neck out-of-bounds.” Just to prove his point, he hauled me up his body so I was level with him, and before I could stop him, he buried his face in the curve of my neck and shoulders and lightly bit me. Lightning pleasure shot through me and my eyes rolled back in my head.

Yes, he cheated.

A while later, bracing himself over me on his arms, both of us sweaty and our lungs pumping like mad, he said, with great satisfaction, “Make that five-zip.”

I hate it when a man gloats, don’t you? Especially when he cheats.

“We’ll fly home,” he said as we packed our bags after breakfast.

“But my truck-”

“We’ll turn the rentals in here. My car’s at the airport at home. I’ll take you to pick up your car.”

Finally I was getting my car back! That part of it was a good plan. But I don’t like flying all that