He took a long, restorative gulp of his hot chocolate, watching her over the rim the entire time. She was doing her best not to look at him.
“You’re going to have to meet my eyes sometime, Daff,” he told her with a slight smile.
“Yes, but not right now,” she whispered.
“Hmm.” He allowed the silence to continue for several minutes, not pressuring her, hoping she would be the first to speak. After a few long moments, she finally rewarded his patience.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You spend way too much time apologizing to me.”
“Because I keep saying and doing stupid things.” She sniffed before shaking her head and holding up a finger. “No, don’t argue.”
Spencer hid a grin at that, since he’d had absolutely no intention of arguing. He said nothing, wanting her to do the talking for now.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I felt bad about what happened in the car tonight. I don’t think you’re dumb. If anything, I’m a little jealous because you did the whole college thing and made something of yourself. I’m such a loser. Same dead-end job for sixteen years, moving from one crappy failed relationship to the next. I mean, I lived with my parents up until a year ago, for God’s sake.”
“You moved from store clerk to manager. I wouldn’t call that a dead-end job,” he reminded her, and she laughed bitterly.
“Please, if I took my credentials elsewhere, they’d laugh at me. The only reason I got that promotion was because nobody else stuck around as long as I did. I know how the business works. And instead of taking the time to find, and possibly train, a new manager, Alison”—her boss—“just slapped the label onto me and barely increased my salary to reflect the title. And the worst of it is . . . I hate my job. I hate the sight of that store every morning, hate the smell of it, the very thought of it. But I have no idea how to do anything else.”
“Why did you kiss me?”
“I thought it was what you wanted,” she whispered, the words timid.
“Was it what you wanted?”
Her eyes widened a little, as if his words shocked her. “I don’t . . . I think . . . if you wanted it, then I wanted it.” That answer was so fucked-up on so very many levels, and it pissed him off beyond reason. He fought hard to hide his flare of temper from her and took a deep, fortifying breath before he trusted himself to speak again.
“Yes, but was it what you wanted?”
“I think so.”
“Daff, it’s a straightforward question, requiring a yes or no answer.”
“Didn’t you want to kiss me?” Again in that tiny, timid voice that was so unlike the brash, outspoken Daff he knew.
“Why is this so hard for you?” he asked, confused, and her eyes welled with tears.
“I don’t know if I wanted to kiss you, I just felt that I should. It’s what you do when you like someone. Right?”
“No, it’s not,” he corrected. “You talk with them, get to know them, you decide if you really like them, and then, when you’re absolutely convinced that you can’t take another breath without feeling their mouth on yours, that’s when you kiss them.”
“What about chemistry? What if you just know?”
“And did you? Just know? Is that why you kissed me? Because you just knew you had to?”
Her brow furrowed, and she looked completely confused.
“You’re complicating this. It was just a kiss, for God’s sake,” she said with some of her old spark. “Why do you have to overthink things like this? Why can’t we just be in the moment and share a kiss?”
“Because we weren’t just in a moment. You showed up at my house at two thirty in the morning, soaking wet, rambling on about liking me, and then you planted your mouth on mine in the most desperate excuse of a kiss I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience.”
“You liked it, I know you did. You were hard!”
“Physically, yes, but emotionally it left me stone cold, because it felt . . . frantic and forced.”
“What kind of man is ruled by his emotions when his cock is hard?”
“Clearly not any kind of man you’ve ever been with.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her voice strained and the tears now flowing freely. He knew that acknowledging them, or hugging her close the way he was desperate to, would be met with rejection. So even though it was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, he ignored them.
“It means that I’m not like the assholes you’ve been with before, Daff. You want to kiss me, you’d better fucking mean it. You’d better want it with everything in you, because I’ll want every part of you. Body and soul.”
“What is it with guys?” The words practically exploded from her, rife with frustration and . . . fear? “Why do you all feel the need to own me?”
Whoa.
“That’s not what I meant,” he corrected calmly. “I’m talking about you opening up and willingly sharing those parts of yourself. Not demanding ownership of your body and mind.”
“I fail to see the difference.”
“There is one, a big one.”
“Oh, do elaborate,” she invited him sarcastically. She was definitely getting her spark back, and it relieved him.
“You’d have every part of me, too. Body and soul.”
Shit. His words didn’t have quite the effect he was hoping for—panic immediately rose to the surface. He could see it in the way her shoulders tensed as she retreated emotionally.
“I don’t think that’s something I’d want,” she denied shakily.
“Why not?”
“T-too much responsibility. I mean, I prefer to keep things casual. I like you and I think maybe we’d be good together, but why does it have to be more than that?”
“So what are you after? No-strings sex, that’s it?”
“Yes, and you’re turning it into this big, serious thing. I think you’ve completely missed the point.”
Had he? Maybe he was completely misreading the situation. It would be just like him to be Mr. Commitment in what was essentially a sex-only situation. It was exactly what had happened with Tanya. She’d never been into the whole relationship thing, and hindsight told him that he’d been willfully blind to that fact, forcing a relationship when she’d only ever been after a good time.
Was he doing the same thing with Daff? Had he turned her big seduction into an embarrassing and uncalled-for “let’s discuss our feelings” session? He went over the entire encounter from the moment he’d opened the door to now and shook his head.
No, there was definitely something else going on here, and she was covering it up with this . . . bluster now.
“So we fuck each other and when it’s out of our systems, we move on? That’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded breathless and a little uncertain.
Spencer placed his cup carefully down on the granite counter and sighed softly before rounding the island and coming to stand behind her, moving fast in order to catch her off guard. He turned the bar stool until she was facing him and reached down, placing one hand on each knee and gently moving them apart. He immediately shifted his hips between her thighs, until nothing but a deep breath separated them. He moved his hands to the counter on either side of her, effectively caging her with his body.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Have it your way.” Her face was downcast, her regard determinedly fixed on his chest, but that wouldn’t do at all. “Look at me, Daff.”
She tilted her head back obligingly, and he smiled, just a grim parting of his lips.
“That’s better.” He lowered his head and captured her mouth with his; her soft, full lips immediately softened beneath his, and he groaned his satisfaction.
His mouth was gentle, so much gentler than anything she was used to. He finessed instead of claimed, his lips coaxed and requested instead of demanded. The tenderness was new to her, and it made her respond in ways she never knew she had in her. It made her want more, and she opened her mouth willingly when his tongue traced along the seam of her lips, bidding entry.
His hands never left the counter, but hers took on a life of their own and she reached up to explore that beautiful face, her palms tracing the strong contours of his stubbled jaw before moving up over his lean cheeks and then sweeping by his temples until she finally had two fistfuls of his thick hair clenched between her fingers.
She waited for him to deepen the kiss, but he kept it gentle and that lack of insistence made her—for the first time ever—crave more. Her nipples were hard and aching, and between her legs, where she could feel his heat of his erection not even an inch away from her nakedness, she was completely drenched. She slid forward and wrapped her legs around his tight, muscular butt, dragging herself closer until finally she could feel his steel length up against her cleft.
He groaned, lifting his mouth from hers and burying it against her neck, where he landed a soft, suctioning kiss in the cove beneath her ear. The next suckling kiss was lower, then lower, until he got to the neckline of the robe, which he nosed aside to land another one of those gentle, wicked kisses on the curve of her breast.