“Oh, so you’re going to stop avoiding me by making up lies about having a headache and retreating to your bedroom to hide?”
“Um.” Shoot. Could she do that? She wasn’t so sure.
“Because I can’t protect you properly if you’re avoiding me. And you’ve no reason to be embarrassed.”
“I haven’t?” she said in a high-pitched voice.
“Of course not,” he said, sounding amused. “I’ve had plenty of people knee me in the groin then ice me down.”
Oh, he was so lying.
Maya narrowed her gaze at him as her temper stirred. “You’re lying. I thought you said there would be no lies between us.”
“Hmm. I believe I actually said that you couldn’t lie to me. However, I am willing to agree to no lies between us.”
“You just lied.” She waggled her finger in his face. “Tut-tut-tut. That’s very naughty. I might have to look into some consequences for you.”
“Is that so? You might want to rethink that stance. Because you’ve told far more lies than I have. I know you haven’t had any headaches or sore stomachs.”
Shit. She had claimed a lot of headaches and sore tummies lately as an excuse to go to bed. She hadn’t really thought of them as lies . . . more like a necessity.
But lying was a rule.
“We can just call it even,” she said hastily.
“I thought you might feel that way. I’m willing to overlook all the lies if you stop avoiding me.”
“I will. I will stop avoiding you.”
“I suppose it would be pushing it to tell you that you can also stop feeling shy around me.”
“I don’t feel shy,” she blurted out.
Shit. What was she doing? She really didn’t want to confess exactly how she felt around him.
“No? Then why do you struggle to look at me and talk to me at the same time? I thought it was shyness and you’d get over it.”
Had he really thought that?
Because she wasn’t precisely a shy person.
But she guessed it was better he thought that than have him know the truth.
That she was overwhelmed by him.
Physically. Mentally.
He was just so gorgeous she grew tongue-tied around him. Although she thought she had been doing better lately.
Well, sort of.
“I just . . . I don’t know.”
“What did we just speak about, Maya?” he said in a low, warning voice.
What? What was he talking about? What had she . . . oh.
She’d just lied to him.
