“Except that everybody’s going to know that I left it here. And everybody is going to assume that I went home with someone.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
He watched her face, studied the nuance of her expression. “I guess not.”
He wanted her—that was true. He had wanted her ever since he’d first backed her up against the wall in her shop. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t simple. But she was beautiful, and it had been a good while since he’d been with a woman.
Yeah, it was pretty terrible behavior to get involved with the woman he had already made so many terrible mistakes with. But she wanted it. She wanted him. As little sense as that made, it was clear. Made even more clear by the fact that she had gone straight to Ace’s bar, as he had suspected she might, to go and pick up someone else.
That was all frustrated longing and anger at being turned down. And he recognized it, because he had been considering doing the same thing. But, he had also been pretty sure that he was going to find her there. And he’d been right.
So, it had worked out better than he’d imagined. Worst case scenario, he’d figured he could get some random woman to go to bed with him. But, that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted Rebecca.
He let that play over in his mind again, slowly, as he watched her climb up inside his pickup truck. He wanted Rebecca Bear.
There was nothing honorable in that. He couldn’t even pretend. It was easy to tell himself that he was doing something that she wanted, that it was all a part of his attempt to make things right. But what he felt for her in this moment was completely separate from their history.
This was just about him, about her. About her being a woman he wanted with a particular kind of fire. Strange, because he wasn’t usually one for difficult hookups. He didn’t do relationships—he tended to gravitate toward women with empty heads and full bras who just wanted what he did. A little bit of mindless sex, an easy orgasm. That was all he was good for.
Rebecca wasn’t that. She never could be. She was challenging, she was angry and she wasn’t after his body simply because she thought he was hot. There was something else happening here, and he knew it. But he also didn’t want to press.
He had too much on his plate as it was. But this was the kind of distraction that he needed. Actually, fighting with Rebecca in general was a welcome distraction. Otherwise, all he was left with was his family. Family that had become a group of strangers.
Yeah, he’d rather fight with Rebecca any day of the week.
He let out a long sigh as she closed the door, then he got into the truck, starting up the engine and putting it in Reverse.
Rebecca was quiet as they drove onto the highway, quiet as they continued on down the road.
He didn’t like this. This pause before the action. It gave him too much time to think. He was afraid it might be giving her too much time to think. He should want her to change her mind, to turn back. Because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this wasn’t going to end well. Still, he was looking forward to the getting there.
He was that simple. Apparently.
It was a bit of a drive from town up to the lake and the silence began to expand until it was bigger than the cab of the truck. Talking to Rebecca would be a mistake, though. It inevitably was. They didn’t have much of anything to say to each other that didn’t end in a fight. He was much more fond of the way they interacted physically than the way they interacted verbally.
“What changed your mind?” It was Rebecca who broke the silence.
“My dick.” He gritted his teeth, tightening his hold on the steering wheel. If that put her off because it was crass, it was probably for the best.
“I’m not sure if I should be flattered by that or not.”
“Not,” he said. “In fact, you should probably let that offend you real good. You should probably go ahead and run the other way.”
“There you go getting cold feet again,” she said, shaking her head. She planted her boot-clad foot up on the dash of the truck and his body turned