His lips twitched and he stepped closer to me, forcing my head to tip back so I could continue to look at him. But when that lip twitch turned into a full-fledged smile, I was glad I’d tipped my head back. And when his mouth lowered to mine, I was doubly glad. I wouldn’t call what he did a kiss so much as a lip touch. The sweetness of it so earnest, I quivered.
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
“You know what’s happening, Adalynn.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“I made myself pretty damn clear what I wanted to happen.”
He had made himself clear—crystal clear. But then he’d left with Brady and when he came back he didn’t look like a man who wanted to ‘take a chance and ride this out.’ He looked like a man who’d changed his mind and wanted to find a way to extradite himself from the situation as quickly as possible.
“You said we’d talk later,” I reminded him.
“Are you ready for that talk now?”
No. No, I was not ready. I was standing in Trey’s master suite in his huge house with a thousand troubling thoughts running through my mind, stupefied why I’d brought up the talk he’d said we’d have in the first place. Maybe I’d thought he’d blow me off. Maybe that was what I secretly wanted. And suddenly I figured out what my problem was. I was not embarrassed about my small condo with no personality. I wasn’t shocked Trey lived in a showstopper in a gated community. I didn’t even really care he seemed to have his life together and investments and I absolutely did not.
I was scared.
Utterly terrified.
And not of Jake. I thought everyone, most especially Trey, was making way too big of a deal about nothing.
No, I was petrified that Trey had changed his mind.
12
I should’ve let Addy off the hook. She thought she’d offended me, when she’d done the opposite. I wasn’t insulted at her surprise I lived in a big house. I was ecstatic she noted it wasn’t my style. I was pleased as fuck it didn’t impress her. It didn’t change her opinion of me. It absolutely didn’t change her. If anything, it made her withdraw, and even that made me happy.
Addy was who she was. She was nothing like any other woman I’d ever met. It wasn’t lost on me I was good-looking. I had a mirror, and even if I didn’t like the way women had thrown themselves at me—going back as far as I could remember—I didn’t have to work very hard—actually I didn’t have to work at all—to get a warm body in my bed. In high school, that worked for me. In my early twenties, that seriously worked for me.
Then it got old. Then it got annoying. Then it became annoying as fuck I couldn’t sit in a bar with my friends without being approached. That was when my dislike for aggressive women started. There was no challenge, no chase, and for a man like me who needed both, I took little to no pleasure knowing all I needed to do was jerk my head to the exit sign and women would follow.
That was not Adalynn. First, she wouldn’t catch that play. She’d be utterly clueless even if I’d pointed directly at her, then the door—she wouldn’t understand the meaning. And if by some miracle she’d caught on, she would not wordlessly follow me out the door. She would not get in her car and let me follow her home. And she unequivocally would not fuck a man never having spoken to him. All of that was refreshing in a way that made what we’d shared earlier even sweeter.
I was not a man she thought was hot and wanted to fuck. I was Trey. Now that she’d seen my house, which was so in-your-face and screamed money, she couldn’t miss I had some, and not a little, but a lot. Yet, she didn’t give the first fuck. She was still shy, unsure, sweet, innocent Addy. If anything, she didn’t like knowing I could afford a house like this. And that turned me the fuck on. I was still just Trey.
I’d been a lot of things to a lot of women, but never had a single one of them just seen me.
But Addy did.
So, Addy looking around my house with curiosity, trying her best to disguise her mild distaste, wasn’t refreshing, it wasn’t a turn-on, it was everything. Which was going to make the conversation