The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,77

I’m sorry. Here I am making speeches about things just being physical, and I’m being sensitive.”

“I don’t think there’s any way we can pretend there aren’t emotions in this. We have emotions. We’re people.”

She looked relieved by that. “Right. I... Maybe we are friends.”

He stared down at that beautiful face, and wanted to laugh. And he didn’t look at her and think friend. He didn’t look at her and think a single word at all. It was something that bloomed inside of him that he couldn’t quite articulate.

“Now, what are your sex questions?”

“I’m not sure I can ask them now.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“It’s inappropriate. We were being serious.”

“Sex is pretty serious.”

“I know. But asking about... Mechanics and things isn’t,” she said.

“I don’t know. It depends on what you’re confused about. There’s a definite possibility that it could get serious.”

“I’m not confused about anything, I just... I’m curious.”

“Hit me with your curiosity.”

“Is it always that good?”

His mind was blank. Of previous experience. And that did make him feel strange, because he’d spent a lot of years sleeping with the same person, and he knew that things between them had been good. But right now he couldn’t... He couldn’t compare the two things.

“What happened between us isn’t typical. Or normal. And I can’t say that I’ve ever felt anything like it.”

Honesty. He promised her that. And he wanted it from her. Because they needed to be able to talk to each other, mostly because there wasn’t anyone else he could talk to. And here she was, this woman he’d only known for a few weeks, who now had more of him than anyone else in his life. Who’d heard his whole story from beginning to end. Who he’d been inside. And he was the only man to ever be with her like that. They had fallen into an intimacy that was pretty deep and intense. And so... Honesty it was. Because what else was there?

“Oh.”

“When I was holding you, down in the river. I thought that was the closest thing to perfect the world could offer.”

“I thought that too,” she whispered. “But I thought maybe that was just sex.”

“No,” he said, his voice rough. “It wasn’t just sex.”

And that threw a wrench in the whole just sex conversation they’d just had. But then, his whole life had been destroyed, and now he was standing there, on the verge of figuring out how to make something from it. Not just hide away. And maybe it was all right if he didn’t have all the answers.

“Is there anything I can help you with here?”

“As a matter of fact,” she said. “There are a great many high things that I’m having trouble reaching.”

“Well, I’m happy to help with that.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

BY THE TIME they were finished, she was hungry. And more than ready for some kind of a break, and a snack. Baked goods weren’t going to cut it.

“Do you want to get something to eat?” She immediately wished that she could take it back, because she did wonder if it wasn’t good to ask him out. They could stay in. They could stay in and eat any one of her preprepared meals, but that’s what they’d been doing.

“Sure,” he said. “Want to go down to the saloon?”

She hadn’t expected that. But it did sound like a pretty good idea. She was at war with herself, though. Because if she went to the saloon, the odds were high that she would run into someone she knew. She might even run into a member of her family. On the other hand, plain Iris Daniels, walking into the Gold Valley Saloon with a man as good-looking as Griffin on her arm... Well, she did kind of like that. Because not only was Griffin handsome, he looked kind of dangerous, and that was a compelling thought. Her, being with someone dangerous. Talk about challenging the status quo.

“Yes. I would like that.”

“Great.”

They walked out of the bakery, and down the street. She wondered if he would hold her hand. But of course that didn’t mesh with what they were talking about doing with each other. That wasn’t friendship in one room, and making love in another. And that was sort of what it seemed like they were trying to do. Because he was right. It was great to have somebody to walk into this new phase of her life with. Somebody she could ask questions of. Somebody she could gain experience with, and who she could trust. And she did