“Maybe,” she said softly. “But... we need to be ableto come back here. We need to be able to come back to King’s Crest, to come back to our lives. To come back to each other. Because... I have lost everything in the last few weeks. I cannot lose you. The lead-up to the wedding was hard, because I would look at you and it felt like I was losing something. But I think I wanted you then. And it just felt like a terrible loss, a terrible waste that I never kissed you. That we had all of these things, but we never had that. You know how angry it made me that there were women out there that knew what you look like naked and I didn’t?”
Her words, though they were not carefully practiced seduction speeches, were the damned hottest thing he’d ever heard in his life. There was no doubt about it.
“I was just happy,” he said.
“You were?”
“Yes. Because you were safe from me. Because you made it. Yeah, I was really happy that you were gonna make it.” He let that sit between them.
“Do you not want this?”
“I want you. If that wasn’t damned clear, I don’t know what is. And I know it’s hard for you to believe that for me this isn’t meaningless.”
“It’s not. I’m sorry.”
“It means more. I want you to know that. Because I don’t have sex with women I know. I don’t want to know their names, I don’t want to know where they live, I don’t want to know what they want to do with their lives. I don’t want to know what issues their daddy gave them, and I don’t want to be responsible for easing any of it. I don’t want to be involved. But Ican’t say no to this. To you. That’s how much it matters. It is everything that I don’t want, with one thing I desperately do. So when I tell you it means something, you best pay attention.”
“Okay.”
His heart was pounding hard; his hand still hadn’t stopped shaking. “You should go into the house.”
“You want to come with me?”
“I’m going to drive a loop. I’ll be in later.”
“You don’t trust yourself.”
He shook his head. “I do not trust myself. No.”
“You would never...”
“Oh, I know I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want. But the trouble is, I’d have you wanting it in seconds.”
She laughed. “That isn’t how it works for me.”
“Were you not just in the barn with me?” Her cheeks turned pink. “Yeah, I thought so.”
She got out of the truck, and he watched as she walked into the house. He sat there in the truck, then he drove back out toward the main road, and just parked his car in the middle of it. He took his phone out, and dialed Denver. “Hey.”
“It’s late?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You need me to pick you up?”
He laughed. “No. I just wanted to tell you... I’m going to go away for a week. In a couple of days. Sorry that is short notice. I hope you guys are covered.”
“Yeah. That’s fine. Where are you going?”
“Rue still has her honeymoon booked.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She doesn’t want to go by herself.”
“You’re going on your best friend’s honeymoon with her?”
“Yep.”
