Just One Kiss (Whisper Lake #4) - Barbara Freethy Page 0,78

had just happened between them.

He rolled onto his side as he looked at Hannah. Her hair was a tangled mess from his impatient fingers and there was a rosy hue to her cheeks. She pulled a sheet up over her breasts, while he was happy to let the air cool him down.

She gave him a happy look, her eyes bright, her lips swollen from the pressure of his mouth. And God help him, he already wanted her again.

"No way," she said, clearly reading his mind. "I'm exhausted."

"I didn't say I wouldn't let you rest."

"I also have to go home, Jake."

"Your mom can't stay the night?"

"I don’t want to push it too much."

He was disappointed, but he understood. "I get it." He reached out and brushed a piece of hair off her forehead. "Beautiful Hannah. I never thought we'd get back here."

"Me, either. A part of me feels like we wasted so much time."

"I've thought that, too. But it wasn't wasted. We had to grow up. We had to become who we are now."

"If you'd asked me a week ago if we'd even talk again, much less have a night like this, I would have said you were crazy. I had my walls up."

"They were incredibly high. At times, they felt insurmountable," he said. "When you'd see me and run away, it hurt me, Hannah, every single time."

"Seeing you hurt me, too. When you came back, I wasn't ready to deal with you again. I had locked you away, and I didn't want to let you out. I was afraid to see you as you are, because I didn't want to want you again." She let out a sigh. "I was right to be afraid. It's been four days, and here we are."

"But it took more than four days to get back here," he said quietly.

"I know." Her expression shifted from pure bliss to one of uncertainty, and he hated to see the change. "I'm not sure where we go from here, Jake."

"Do we have to decide now?"

"Maybe not. But you know me, I like to plan things out. I like to have structure." She paused. "We're different that way. You're good at winging it, taking a leap into the unknown. I like to know exactly where I'm headed and how I'm going to get there."

"It's good that we're not the same. We complement each other."

"I suppose. You do push me in a way no one else ever has. What do I do for you?"

He thought for a moment. "You make me want to be the best version of myself."

She gave him a doubtful look. "I do? That has to be a recent thing, because it wasn't true before."

"Not that recent. The desire started about five minutes after I realized how badly I'd hurt you."

"I don't want to talk about that."

"Neither do I," he said quickly, sorry he'd brought it up.

"But you know what makes me crazy about that night, Jake?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk about it. Let's stay in this happy place that we're in. It's nice, don't you think?"

"It is nice," she said with a sigh. "But it was nice before, and then it ended, and I still don't know why. You had so many different excuses for doing what you did. I wish I could understand what really happened that day."

"Does it matter anymore?"

"I think it does, Jake. You want me to trust you again, and to do that, we need to have everything in the open. No secrets. No misunderstandings. No confusion. Complete and total honesty. That's how we move forward."

"I think it's how we move backward," he argued. "There's nothing I can say that will make you feel better about what happened. There's no way I can give you any kind of guarantee that you won't get hurt again. I can make the promise, but you have to find a way to have faith in me, in us."

She thought about that. "Maybe the promise would make more sense if I had context about what happened."

He sighed. "You are so stubborn."

"You're being just as stubborn," she retorted. "Why won't you tell me?"

He could lie and say he didn't know, but he'd done that before, and she hadn't believed him. He could make up a reason, but he'd done that before, too, and she hadn't believed him. She might believe the truth. It might change her feelings about his actions, but his hands were tied.

"I made a mistake, Hannah. I got drunk. I hooked up with