He ran his hands through his hair and walked behind the car to open her door for her. Katrin shifted her body so her legs dangled out of the car and then looked up at him, eyes still wide.
“Was that for real?” she asked.
“Did it seem real?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it did.”
“So, I guess you can assume it was real.”
“So, essentially, you just told me you want…”
“Seriously, Kat? You want me to say it all again?”
“I want to understand. You aren’t interested in commitment. I get that. But, you know I’m not the sort of girl to sleep with someone without one. And, to be clear, I’m not asking for anything. I’ve never asked for anything. But, I don’t understand how your plan and my virtue can mesh. Aren’t we deadlocked?”
Erik put his hands on his hips, looking away for a moment. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him, was she?
“Maybe this could be an exception for you. I was sort of thinking that maybe what you need is a—a rebound fling.”
She stared at him, her face shutting closed before him as her eyes narrowed into furious slits. “A…rebound fling?”
She said it like it was totally and completely repulsive.
Crap, she did not look happy.
She was probably assessing the cons of the plan and not giving the pros a chance.
“You know,” he said, “to help you get over Wade.”
She shifted her legs back into the car, staring straight ahead. Her voice was low and controlled and utterly livid. “Take me home.”
Craaaaaaaaap.
“Kat. No. Wait.” He squatted down beside her, putting his hand on her knee. She twisted her neck, her wide eyes catching his in a scathing look, and he winced, removing his hand carefully. She turned her head back toward the windshield, stone-faced.
Crap. Crap. Crap. This wasn’t going well at all.
“Take me home now, Erik. Right now. I mean it.”
His heart raced with the full understanding of how grossly he had misjudged the situation. “Kat, just let me explain—”
“Erik,” she interrupted him, but still refused to look at him. “There is nothing to explain. I get it. Your offer is one hundred percent crystal clear to me.” She breathed in, her shoulders bunching around her ears for a moment before she turned to him, her face a picture in fury. “You know what? There is something between us. There just is, and we both know it. But, that is not how it’s going to play out, in some cheap, tawdry rebound fling—and furthermore, I am not some charity case. Not some…some pathetic shell of a person who needs you to screw her out of the disappointment of her failed engagement, out of her—”
“Katrin—” he started.
“No! You shut your mouth, Erik. You shut it. A rebound fling? Do you have any idea how insulting that is?”
Her eyes were filled with tears, and she turned away, swiping at them with the back of her hand.
At that precise moment, something happened inside of Erik that had never happened to him before with any other girl: his heart ached. Not figuratively. His heart actually, physically hurt, as he watched her swipe at her eyes. He had hurt her, cheapened her with his garish proposal.
How do I fix this? God, how do I fix this?
“Okay, okay. Listen. Um…forget that rebound crap. That was bull. Just an excuse. But the rest? Kat, I meant every word I said in the car,” he admitted in a frustrated whisper. “I—I can’t stop thinking about you. I think about you all the time. Being with you, kissing you. I couldn’t—I couldn’t think of another way to…to…”
“To stop thinking about me?” She turned to him and he could see the rigidity of her angry body soften then. Her voice lost its edge as she searched his eyes, like it was important to her to understand. “Are you saying that sleeping with me would help you stop thinking about me?”
He shrugged and then nodded wordlessly. He was still squatting beside the car and he looked down, hanging his head in regret, in anger with himself, in fear for the changes happening right now between them. What had started as a no-strings-attached proposition in his head was now moving into unfamiliar territory, emotional territory, in a very real way. Erik was moving out of his depth, beyond his comfort zone.
“You can’t stop thinking about me,” she murmured, and he could hear the pleased wonder in her soft voice.
He swallowed, but nodded, keeping his head down.
She tipped his chin up with her fingertips, but he kept his eyes downcast, worried about what he would see if he looked at her face. He longed to see tenderness, but it would terrify him to realize that the comfortable farce of calling themselves family-friends was over. It would terrify him to see that she cared for him as much as he was starting to care for her.
“Erik,” she whispered, somehow reading his mind. “Close your eyes.”
Her fingertips abandoned his chin just as her lips touched his, making him fall forward from a squatting position to his knees. She bent sideways toward him, and he felt her hands encircle the back of his neck, her fingers teasing the bristly hairs on his nape, sending shivers down his back.
He knelt there beside her, in penitence or worship, motionless but for the soft kneading movements of their lips against each other, the amplified rustle of the hairs on his neck competing with the sound of his heartbeat racing in his ears.
She pulled back from him and he opened his eyes. The bright sun streaming in through his window made a halo for her blonde head but blinded him from reading her eyes. He squinted through the light, shielding his eyes with his hand until she came into
