“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Why?”
Jeez, there was just no shaking this guy.
“Let go,” I was getting kind of desperate. I dropped my gaze to his chest, raised my hands there and began to push.
He shook me gently to get my attention. It worked. I looked back up.
“Tel me why you’re sneakin’ out of my bed in the middle of the night.”
“Hank –”
“Answer me, goddammit!”
Holy cow.
He wasn’t pissed off anymore, he was angry. I couldn’t only see it on his face; I could feel it emanating from his body. For some reason, it didn’t scare me. He had it in check. It was entirely control ed. I knew that like I knew there were no other jeans in the world as good as Lucky jeans.
It did make me talk, however. I didn’t like that he was angry, not at me.
“I’m not a slut,” I blurted out.
His hands on my arms relaxed but didn’t go away and he blinked one of his slow blinks. “Sorry?” he asked.
“I’m not a slut.”
God, I sounded like an idiot. Now, I had to explain. “I’m not a slut. Never have I slept with a guy on a first date.
Never. Never. Never.”
“Roxanne –” he started to say but I forged ahead.
“Bil… the last guy, it took, like, three weeks to get to third base and at least a month before we did it. I swear.”
“Roxie –” Hank began again but I kept talking.
“Before him, there was Derek, and we were dating, like, forever before we did it and it was unfortunate when we did because he wasn’t very good at it. Then there was Kenny and I don’t even remember how long it took before we did it. He was a jerk; once we did, he dumped me.”
“Roxie –” Hank said again and started to pul me against his body but I had my arms up between us and, like the total idiot I was, I was counting down my ex-lovers on my fingers.
“Then there was Troy, he was a good kisser, like you, but it stil took, I don’t know, at least two weeks before I let him get his hands up my shirt. Wait, Troy doesn’t count because we never did it in the end. I saw him making out with my friend Kim and I broke up with him. What a bitch. I forgot about her.”
Hank now had his arms around me, Shamus was sitting beside us, his doggie body resting against our legs and I was oblivious to this because I was on a rol .
“Then, there was Scott, he was my first. We dated for at least a year until we final y did it. He married the prom queen and now they’ve got half a dozen kids, no joke.” I stopped and looked up at Hank.
He was looking down at me, angry gone, pissed off a memory, he was smiling again with only his eyes engaged in the smile.
Shit.
Had I just recited al my lovers to Hank?
I had.
Shit.