CHAPTER 6
Before I knew it, we were pulled up in front of my house, sitting in Adrian’s mother’s nice car. It had a sweet leather interior, and still smelled new over the mild scent of Cujo’s dog blanket on the back seat.
“What kind of mileage do you get in this thing?” I asked.
Adrian raised his eyebrow. “Didn’t your father ask my mother the same thing over dinner a few weeks ago?”
“Hmm. I think he did.”
The engine was still running, and Adrian didn’t seem to be preparing to get out and walk me to the door. What the hell, Adrian? It wasn’t even ten-thirty.
“Great staff meeting,” Adrian said.
“Full of surprises.”
“Listen, Peaches, about the thing I said earlier, about us dating other people, I shouldn’t have gone there. Just because I’m afraid of commitment, that’s no excuse to dick you around.”
I waved my hand. “Pfft. Commitment? Nobody’s getting married, okay? Honesty is way more important to me than commitment. I don’t think I’m in a place where I want to get locked down either, you know?”
He gave me a sidelong look. “Are you saying we should keep it casual, and date other people?”
Squirming in my seat, I said, “I don’t know what I’m saying. My teeth feel loose from those drinks we had. I think my double was a triple.”
“Your teeth are loose? I can’t say I’m familiar with that expression.”
My hand went to the latch and pushed the door open. My legs were jumpy all of a sudden, like I wanted to run away from Adrian and this conversation.
“What’s next?” he asked.
“What’s with all the questions?” I asked. “This date was much easier when you had my boobs in your mouth.”
He licked his lips and smiled, speechless.
I edged my way off the seat, pushing open the door.
Adrian turned off the engine and got out of the vehicle, rushing around to my side like a gentleman. I kept walking toward the lighted porch of my house. The night air was cool enough on my bare legs that I didn’t want to linger outside without a jacket.
As we walked to the house and up the steps, I made up my mind about what I wanted. I liked Adrian, but I couldn’t be sure things were over with Dalton. There was something about the sexy actor that couldn’t be pushed out of my heart by another guy. The more I thought about Adrian’s suggestion to date other people, the more it seemed like having your zero-calorie cake and eating it, too.
“You should take Golden out tomorrow night,” I said matter-of-factly, as we walked up the porch steps.
“Is this a trap?”
I poked him in the chest. “I’m serious. She’s a sweet girl, and she really likes you. But you have to be completely honest. And then on Monday, I’ll make you dinner, and we can have another staff meeting. We have a lot of bookstore business to discuss.”
He gazed down at me affectionately, then tucked my hair behind my ear. “Discussing… your perfect, gorgeous, raspberry-shaped nipples in my mouth?”
I clamped my hand over his mouth. “I have nosy neighbors,” I whispered.
He glanced suggestively at the door. “Here we are again.”
In a flash, I remembered us being there, not twenty-four hours before. As I thought of him leaving me, my body heated with indignation.
“Not tonight, loverboy,” I said.
He made a face, shrugging my words off. “Fine. I didn’t want to come in anyway. I have to work in the morning.” He fake-yawned, watching me out of the side of his eye.
“I’ll see you back here Monday. Make it seven-thirty, since I have to work at the bookstore all day and straighten out whatever disaster my incompetent co-worker has made over the weekend.”
“He’s not incompetent, just inexperienced.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to teach him a thing or—”
I was cut off by Adrian’s lips on my mouth. His long arms encircled me, his kiss electric and charging my whole body. When he let me go, every inch of my skin was tingling, from my scalp to my toes.
And then he turned and walked away, a bounce in his step.
I opened the door, slipped in, and kept the interior lights off as I stood in the dark living room and watched the car’s red tail lights streak away in the night.
Alone in the dark, I asked myself out loud, “Peaches, what the fuck are you doing?”
~
On Sunday, I had a ton of energy, and I not only cleaned my room and did my laundry, but I also put all the laundry away instead of giving up partway and leaving the clean stuff in the basket. It wasn’t even my week to clean the bathroom, but I did it anyway, grinning with satisfaction as I scrubbed the antique claw-foot tub to a sparkling shine. Whenever I started to think about something I didn’t want to think about, I just found a new zone to clean!