“I lost most of the day on all this. I need to catch up.”
“Excuses.” She tapped a finger to his chest. “Everybody can use a little lift on a Friday night. A cold beer, some music and conversation. Plus your waitress, who would be me, wears a really short skirt. I’m going to grab a water for the ride,” she said, turning to open the fridge.
He slapped a hand on the door, making her eyebrows arch as she turned back. “No water for me?”
“Why do you keep pushing?”
“I don’t think of it that way.” He crowded her in, she realized. Interesting. And whether he realized it or not, sexy. “I’m sorry that you do. I’d like to see you there in a casual, social setting. Because it would be good for you, and because I’d like to see you. And maybe you need to see me in a short skirt so you can decide if you’re interested in me or not.”
He crowded her in a bit more, but instead of stirring caution or wariness—probably his intent—it stirred lust.
“You’re pushing buttons you shouldn’t.”
“Who can resist pushing a button when it’s right there?” she countered. “I don’t understand that kind of person or that kind of self-denial. Why shouldn’t I want to know if you’re attracted to me before I let myself be any more attracted to you? It seems fair.”
So much going on in there, she thought. Like a storm circling.
Hoping to calm it, she laid a hand on his arm. “I’m not afraid of you, Eli.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Which would be part of my point. I’d like to know you before I get in any deeper. Anyway, I don’t have to know you, the way you mean, to have a sense of you or to be attracted. I don’t think you’re a nice harmless teddy bear any more than I think you’re a cold-blooded killer. There’s a lot of anger under the sad, and I don’t blame you for it. In fact, I understand it. Exactly.”
He shifted back, and his hands found his pockets. Self-denial, she thought, because she knew when a man wanted to touch her. And he did.
“I’m not looking to be attracted to you or involved with you. Or anyone.”
“Believe me, I get that. I felt exactly the same way before I met you. It’s why I’ve been on a sexual fast.”
His eyebrows drew in. “A what?”
“I’ve been fasting from sex. Which could be another reason I’m attracted. Fasts have to come to an end sometime, and here you are. New, good-looking, intriguing and clever when you forget to brood. And you need me.”
“I don’t need you.”
“Oh, bullshit. Just bullshit.” The quick flash of temper caught him off guard, as did the light shove. “There’s food in this house because I put it there, and you’re eating it because I fix it for you. You’ve already put on a few pounds, and you’re losing that gaunt look in your face. You have clean socks because I wash them, and you have someone who listens when you talk, which you occasionally do without me using verbal crowbars to open you up. You have someone who believes in you, and everyone needs that.”
She stalked over, grabbed her purse, then slammed it down again. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever gone through something horrible, something out of their control? The only one who’s been damaged and had to learn to heal, to rebuild a life? You can’t rebuild a life by building barriers. They don’t keep you safe, Eli. They just keep you alone.”
“Alone works for me,” he snapped back.
“Just more bullshit. Some alone, some space, sure. Most of us need it. But we need human contact, connections, relationships. We need all of it because we’re human. I saw the way you looked when you recognized Maureen on the beach that day. Happy. She’s a connection. So am I. You need that as much as you need to eat and drink and work and have sex and sleep. So I make sure you have food and I stock water and juice and Mountain Dew because you like it, and I make sure you have clean sheets to sleep on. Don’t tell me you don’t need me.”
“You left out the sex.”
“That’s negotiable.”
She believed in instinct, so went with it. She simply stepped forward, grabbed his face in both hands and planted her lips on his. Not sexual, she thought, as much as elemental. Just human