“That’s disturbing,” I said, kissing the tip of her nose. “But thank you. I think.”
Her mood shifted like quicksilver, from gossamer light to guarded. She pursed her lips and contemplated my sternum. “Speaking of your father.”
“What?” I was instantly on high alert.
She glanced up at me. “You need to talk to him.”
There was something behind her eyes that worried me. “Why?”
She dropped her gaze to my chest and started toying with my chest hair. “Um. Well. I had a little chat with him last night after you passed out.” Her pause was infinitesimal. “With your mother, too.”
My blood pressure went from sleeping baby to day trader on the stock market on Black Monday. “About?”
Her eyes flashed up to mine. “Don’t shout!”
“I’m not shouting, I’m asking!”
She glared at me.
I blew out a deliberate breath and lowered my voice. “I’m sorry. Talking about my parents when I’m naked in bed with you is . . . yuck.”
She pouted for a second, then relented. “How much do you remember from last night?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. How much did I remember? Backtracking to before the amazing dream that turned out not to be a dream this morning, I recalled arriving at Moonstar yesterday evening, meeting my father in the foyer, coming up to my room to change, going back down to dinner to suffer through the screaming silence of all the family dinners I’d enjoyed growing up, and then . . .
Nothing.
“I drank too much,” I pronounced. I slanted my eyes down at Bianca, hoping she’d fill in the blanks.
She knew I was bluffing but took pity on me. “You told me about Linc and Cricket,” she said gently. “And about what happened after. Going to New Orleans. Christian. Cody. Everything.”
Coldness sliced through me, freezing as an arctic wind. Then, worse, suspicion. Did she sleep with me because she felt sorry for me?
Examining my face, Bianca pounded her little fists on my chest. “If you ever look at me like that again,” she said, seething, “you won’t be a nice, tasty filet anymore, Jackson Boudreaux, you’ll be ground beef!”
Her threat made me feel oddly relieved. “I love it when you threaten me with bodily harm,” I said, and kissed her again.
She sighed contentedly against my lips. I was enamored by how quickly she could get over anger. It usually took me days.
She said, “Well, someone’s got to keep you in line. Might as well be your wife.”
It was a throwaway line, but it speared me right through the heart. It took a moment for my blood to start circulating again. “Wife,” I repeated solemnly, gazing into her eyes.
She wrinkled her nose. “Lord, you make it sound like someone just told you Christmas was canceled.”
I cupped her jaw in my hand. “No. It’s like someone just told me I won the lottery.”
“Do billionaires play the lottery?”
“They would if they knew you were the prize.”
She squirmed a little, pleased but acting like she wasn’t, and resumed toying with my chest hair like it was her new pet. I stroked her face, dazzled by all the little dancing hearts in my eyes.
“I need a shower,” she pronounced, then looked at me from under her lashes.
“God, those filthy eyes. You could probably be arrested for that look. Pervert.”
She said casually, “Well, since we’re doing a sex weekend before we go back to real life, I might as well make the most of it, right?”
Inside my head was the sound a freight train makes when it slams on its brakes, then topples off the tracks, spilling its load of munitions and poison gas, which promptly explode in an enormous orange ball of flame, scorching the earth and destroying all life in a fifty-mile radius.
Clearly for Bianca, this wasn’t the start of something deeper between us. This was the itch that needed to be scratched before it could be forgotten. This was the annoying, tickling pressure that had built to the point where it could only be relieved with a reflexive action, like a sneeze.
Bianca was going to sneeze me out of her system. She’d told me flat out, “it would be a good idea if we got it out of our systems.”
And I’d gone and fallen in love with her. What a fool.
“Right,” I said, shuttering my eyes.
She examined my expression for a moment. “What’s that face you’re making? I don’t recognize that face.”
This is what heartbreak looks like. “Nothing,” I said flatly. “I’m fine.”
She pushed me in the chest so hard I flopped onto my back. My eyes flew open in surprise. I grunted as she threw herself on top of me.