Even though she wasn’t looking at him, tucked up against his chest as she was, she felt his smile. “Of course it does.”
Chapter Twelve
Oh, for God’s sake.
Jake hadn’t been kidding about his plan to beat off twenty-five times before he next saw Nora. Well, maybe twenty-five had been an exaggeration, but he had gotten in the shower an hour ago, after he’d cleaned both the cottage and the fish in preparation for her arrival, to take the edge off. Yesterday he had lasted all of forty-five seconds after she’d started grinding on him, and that was not a statistic he could live with on an ongoing basis.
But as he and Mick sat on the deck waiting for her arrival, it only took one glimpse of her as she rounded the outcropping in the boots he’d left on the other side for her earlier in the day—he’d picked up one of her discarded shoes to check the size before leaving her room in the inn yesterday and bought her a new pair this morning—for him to pop a semi.
Mick barked.
“I know, dude. I know.”
He got up, adjusted himself, and walked out to meet her. He’d instructed her to bring nothing, but her arms were laden with bags.
He wasn’t sure how to greet her. Should they kiss? He wanted to kiss her, but that was probably uncalled for. He’d meant what he’d said about not doing romance, and he genuinely believed they were on the same page about that. So he gestured for her to hand over her bags. “What’s all this?”
She picked up Mick, who was yipping happily at her feet and wagging his entire butt, and started kissing his head and…Was he jealous of a dog?
“A pumpkin chiffon pie from Pearl’s, a bottle of wine, some doggie treats, and…” She nodded toward the bag in his right hand. “Look in that one.”
He pulled out a box of condoms and chuckled. “Extra large. You flatter me.”
“Oh, come on.”
He shrugged. He had bought some, too. The same kind, in fact.
“I’m actually a little scared of that thing.”
Was she talking about his dick? He furrowed his brow.
“I mean, I’m kind of shrimpy.” She laughed, but not like she had yesterday. This laughter seemed a bit forced. “And you’re kind of…not shrimpy.” She grimaced jokingly. “And it’s been a while.”
“Nora.” He stepped in front of her so he could look at her. God. He would attend the Mermaid Parade every day for the rest of his life and make small talk with the whole goddamn town before he would want Nora to do something she didn’t want to do. “You’re here for dinner. Nothing else has to happen.”
“I know.” She rolled her eyes as she came to a halt—he was blocking her path. “I mean, I’m here for dinner and for…everything else. I really am. I’m just…”
He didn’t like this. The Nora he knew was decisive. She didn’t let sentences trail off. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. “What?” he said, as gently as he could. Then, realizing that staring at her super intensely probably wasn’t helping the cause of getting her to feel comfortable talking about what was bothering her, he continued walking toward the cottage.
He wanted to grab her hand, but that was another thing that wasn’t called for. They’d only done it last time as a practical means to keep together as they’d run away from Karl. They were friends who were sleeping together—or friends who had slept together once, past tense, because he wasn’t going to push her here—and there was no reason to hold hands.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, as gently as he could.
She blew out a breath. “I’m having a crisis of confidence, to be honest. I was with Rufus for five years.” She snorted. “And unlike him, I never slept with anyone else in those five years.”
He held up his free hand, but in a joking way, because he thought it would lighten the mood and that she might appreciate that. “Do not speak her name. You are way perkier than she is.”
She smiled. “Anyway, yesterday just sort of happened, but this is…premeditated. Which has left a lot of space for me to ponder the idea that I haven’t slept with anyone else besides Rufus for five years, and you know…” More trailing off. He hated that. But he had to let her finish. “In retrospect, I guess I wasn’t doing it for him.”
Oh God. Someone should just reach into his chest and