lip as he reached out to brush a curl away from my eyes. “Please, Bee. I need you. You said it yourself. I’m clueless.”
My lips twitched. I could never stay mad at him for long. Damn him. But if I didn’t stay mad, the pain would sneak in, and I didn’t want that to happen either.
“You told me you weren’t.”
“Well, in matters of life, I guess not, no, or at least I wasn’t until I went to the city for a law enforcement convention and hooked up with a woman who wasn’t at all who I thought she was.”
I stroked Sadie’s soft ear as she leaned her head against my thigh. “Did she leave you high and dry?”
“No. It wasn’t like that. It was honestly nothing but two nights in a hotel room. We didn’t make plans to connect afterward because we were blowing off steam. That’s all.”
“While you were blowing, did your hand slip on the latex?”
His direct glance nearly made me blush. “My hand never slips, Bee.”
“Then what happened?”
He pushed a hand through his short dark hair. “I don’t know. She said she was on the Pill too.”
“Sounds like you need a S on your chest if you can go through two forms. If she was being honest.”
“How the hell do I know? Now I’m questioning everything. Replaying every conversation and every—”
“Liplock?” I suggested, instantly wanting to seal my own lips shut with superglue.
“I think it means more to you than it did to me, since you’ve spent as much time thinking about it in the last few minutes as I have the entire past year.”
“Well, you knew about it and I didn’t. And if it was so meaningless to you, it seems even more likely you’d be like, ‘hey, got some this week, sucks to be you.’ But hey, what do I know, right?” I patted Sadie’s back, and she wiggled her rump excitedly. “C’mon, Sadie, let’s get some fresh air.”
Except Jared wasn’t budging from the doorway.
I sighed. “Seriously? Can’t you take a hint?”
“I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t proud that I’d done it.”
“Oh, no, did you have first time regrets?” Being a smart ass under pressure was a bad habit of mine, and usually, Jared just laughed off my remarks.
He was not laughing now. In fact, his expression was practically a glower.
“It wasn’t my first time, which you damn well know. Far from it. That blessed event belonged to Anna Nordway when I was fourteen.”
“Fourteen?” I couldn’t help widening my eyes. “Early bloomer.”
He shrugged. “It’s different for a guy.”
I shook my head. “Oh, Lord, please grant me the serenity not to knee him in his misogynistic balls. He’s already gotten some use out of them, so I could look at it as a public service.”
He surprised me by laughing. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did. Next, you’ll say women should stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.”
His nostrils flared, and something stirred way down low in my belly. So low I wasn’t sure anything had ever gone on in that particular place before. “What about you?”
I was breathing way too fast. Did he mean… “What about me, what?”
“How old were you?”
Through the miracle of oxygen finally filtering through to my brain, I recovered enough to comprehend his question. But that didn’t mean I was going to miss a chance to razz him. “Gotta be a bit more specific there, Sheriff.”
“How old were you when you let a man touch you for the first time?”
My heartbeat tripped. “He wasn’t a man, definitely a boy, and I touched him first. As I tend to do.” I wetted my lips. “Seventeen.”
“Not that long ago for you.”
“Long enough. There have been a few in between. Surprisingly enough, you get better with practice.”
His jaw tightened. “How much practice?”
I wasn’t an expert on male-female relations, but even I could tell this conversation was veering into dangerous territory. Especially when our emotions were high, and he’d had a baby with someone else.
He’d kissed her.
Touched her.
Made love to some faceless woman I couldn’t help hating no matter how much I told myself I was better than that.
Tomorrow, I’d be better. Tonight, I’d be honest—with myself, at least, if not with him.
“I do believe that’s a conversation you aren’t getting out of me without a bottle of wine between us. And that’s not happening tonight.” Lightly, I gave his chest a shove.
He gave way without a fight, stepping out of the doorway so Sadie and I could pass into the hall.