“I live five minutes away. Stop being such an old woman. I’ll text you when I get home.”
“Once you’re safely indoors with your door closed and bolted behind you,” he stipulated.
“Sure. Whatever.” He couldn’t resist it—he tugged the trapped hair at her collar free and she glared at him.
“Well, you never seem to get around to it,” he explained, hiking a shoulder.
“Maybe I like it there. Maybe it’s a neck warmer.”
So touchy.
“Sorry, darling. It won’t happen again.”
“Yeah, that can’t happen again, either.”
“What?” he asked, baffled.
“The darling thing. Don’t call me that.”
“You said you like it,” he reminded.
“It’s not appropriate. What if you slip up and call me that in front of the others?”
This whole friend thing—if she even consented to it—was going to be challenging.
“We’ll talk again soon,” she promised him, then opened the door and left before he could say anything more.
Spencer sighed and resigned himself to a night with just his palm and a bottle of scotch for company. Same shit, different day, really.
Tomorrow would sort itself out.
CHAPTER NINE
Daff didn’t know how she felt. Part of her was relieved that it was over, another was humiliated that he had called her out on all her bullshit, and another still was saddened that it had ended before it began. They hadn’t really done much more than some heavy petting, but the orgasms he had given her were streets ahead of anything she’d ever experienced before. Truculent, taciturn, socially inept Spencer Carlisle knew his stuff in the bedroom. Who knew?
Well . . . Daff now knew. And she truly wished she didn’t. How the hell was she supposed to act casual with him when they were around family and friends? And worse, he knew other things about her. He’d been way too on the mark with some of the stuff he’d said. She hadn’t been fully sold on the idea of no-strings sex with him. She didn’t like going down on a guy—at least, she hadn’t with her two previous lovers. She felt like a cold fish in bed because their games had turned her off and that had felt like her failure. Apparently BDSM wasn’t her thing, but they’d expected it to be. Both of them. Why?
Did she give off some kind of kinky vibe? Her very first sexual partner had tied her up, gagged her, and spanked her the first time they’d had sex. Not quite the initiation she’d expected. It had been frightening and intimidating, and he hadn’t even asked her if she was okay with it. Just assumed she would be. And then he’d been all kinds of smug about his performance afterward.
Thinking the fault was with her, Daff had said nothing, merely pretended to enjoy it. She’d gotten really good at faking orgasms. Jake’s bag of tricks had expanded to include nipple clamps and blindfolds, as well as other handy restraints and harnesses that had made her feel claustrophobic and nauseous every time they had sex. The relationship had lasted for three years and had only ended when he got bored with her.
She shook her head. This trip down nightmare lane wasn’t exactly fun, and she preferred never to think about Jake Kincaid ever again. Shar Bridges, a former high school friend, had introduced Daff to Jake.
Shar had introduced Lia to her douchebag ex-fiancé, Clayton Edmonton III, as well, and had promised that he was the perfect guy for Lia. Of course, with Shar being a total bitch and hindsight being twenty-twenty, none of them should ever have trusted her with their love lives. Shar had terrible taste in men and a mean streak a mile wide. And she had been a total rhymes-with-punt to Daisy for years. Why the hell the McGregor sisters hadn’t booted that bitch and her entourage of mean girls years ago, Daff would never know.
Daff somehow managed to get home without paying real attention to her surroundings; luckily the one main road in town was empty this time of night. She let herself into the house and sent Spencer a quick message that simply stated: home.
Spencer was right—she had way too many hang-ups, and it had been a stupid idea to get involved with him in the first place. She couldn’t stand sex, which was why her offer to Spencer had baffled her. A spur-of-the-moment impulse that had come from seemingly nowhere. And now look at her—the very first time she’d ever picked up the reins, the horse had thrown her and bolted. Naturally.
But the truly messed-up thing was that despite the abject failure, she had learned something new about herself. After the powerful orgasms she’d experienced with Spencer, she now doubted that she’d ever climaxed with a man before. She had never felt anything nearly as intense.
She now understood why Daisy looked like the cat that got the cream whenever she was around Mason. To think she’d pitied Daisy after learning her sister had been a virgin at twenty-seven. Now Daff envied her somewhat. Daisy had scored the jackpot with her first (and only) lover, while Daff would have been better off without hers.
She checked her phone to see if Spencer had responded to her text. The message had been read, but he hadn’t responded. Not even with a dumb emoji. Her heart sank, and she realized that she was going to miss him. Maybe keeping him as a friend was worth considering.
She wasn’t sure. It wasn’t a decision she was ready to make, not when everything below her waist was still clenching after his unselfish pleasuring earlier.
She scrubbed a hand over her face and tiredly made her way to the bathroom for a shower. She fell into bed after that but couldn’t get her roiling thoughts under control. So many bad decisions had led to this moment in her life, and she was buried beneath years of regret. So much regret.
She tossed and turned, going over every mistake, every stupid decision, every wrong turn, but she still couldn’t pinpoint exactly where everything had gone so very wrong.
She knew she had to change something, had to better herself and her life. Find clarity and a way to rid herself of these pervasive feelings of inadequacy and hollowness. She wished that she could just wake up tomorrow and find herself living the perfect life. But she wasn’t entirely sure what constituted a perfect life, and she had no idea what would make her happy. It was a grim and disturbing awareness.
“Hi, there.” Lia waltzed into the boutique just before twelve the following afternoon, and Daff glared into her middle sister’s cheerfully smiling face.
“Daisy sent you, didn’t she?” Lia’s smile wavered slightly before she righted it and blasted Daff with an even brighter one.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought I’d join you for lunch.” She lifted her little strawberry-shaped lunch box and glass bottle of orange juice as proof. Daisy had chosen the worst possible spy; Lia didn’t have a duplicitous bone in her body. But since Lia had given up her job as a minder at the local day care center last year, she had a flexible schedule until she found something new. So Lia was really Daisy’s only choice in whatever recon mission she’d cooked up to figure out who Daff’s mystery man was.
“Lia.”
“Okay, fine. She told me to find out whatever I could about the”—she blushed and cleared her throat delicately—“the Dick. Why would you call him that? Why not Mr. McSexy or Mr. Big or something? Why refer to his anatomy?”
“Firstly, those references are so dated I’m embarrassed—and cringing on the inside—for you, and secondly, it wasn’t so much in reference to his anatomy as to his personality.” Not that she thought of him in that way anymore.
“Why would you date a guy you think is a . . . a . . . you know?”
“We’re not dating.” Daff shrugged. “And really, you’re wasting your time. He won’t bring or send lunch today. It’s over between us.” She forced down the pang of regret at the words.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was nothing.” Daff averted her eyes, not wanting her sister to see the lie in them.
“Well, I’m here now. I might as well stay for lunch. What are you having?”
“I brought some fruit and a packet of chips.” She was really going to miss Spencer’s lunches.
“Ugh, that’s not a proper lunch. You can share my—” The bell above the door interrupted her words, and they both looked up to see young Alton from SCSS walk in, carefully carrying a large-ish brown paper bag.
“Afternoon, miss. The boss asked me to deliver this to you.” Shocked that Spencer would still do this, despite everything that had happened last night, Daff accepted the bag. “Careful, miss, there’s soup in one of the containers.”
“Okay. Thanks, Alton.”
“My pleasure, miss.” He grinned at her and retreated with a jaunty wave.
Daff carefully placed the bag on the counter and tore the note from the folded top. Ignoring Lia’s shocked expression, she turned her back and read the short note through a haze of tears.
I’m sorry. I hope we can still be friends.
S
PS: And even if we can’t be, don’t expect me to stop sending your lunch.
Oh God. Why was he apologizing? The man had been nothing but amazing since this all began. He was right, she was always apologizing to him, but only because he deserved those apologies.