“What night?” Zach said with deliberate innocence.
She smiled. “You know what night.”
“Yeah. I do.” He turned her in his arms and locked his hands at the base of her spine; she put her palms against his chest. “But I want to hear you say it. You were the very picture of propriety until…?”
“The picture of propriety.” She laughed. Leaned back in his arms and looked up at him. “Why do I get the feeling you wouldn’t know the first thing about propriety?”
“I would. I do. Believe it or not, I clean up really well.” He captured her mouth with his in a soft, sweet kiss. “And you’re trying to change the subject. You were a good girl until—”
“Until that night in your place. I’d never done anything like that before.”
“Spent the night without electricity?”
She laughed, tapped him lightly on the shoulder with her fist.
“It was the first time I’d ever—I’d ever been with a man I’d just met. You know. I’d never had sex with a stranger.”
He’d already figured that out by himself, but hearing her say it was better.
Why should the admission make him feel so damn good?
“The first time,” he said, trying to sound casual.
“Uh huh.”
He wanted to tell her it would be the last time, too, but he stopped himself before he said it. Nobody could predict the future. This was now. It was—it was terrific. But who knew what either of them would feel a month from today?
So, instead of saying something foolish, he smiled and said, “Well then, we’re even.”
Jaimie rolled her eyes.
“Puh-leeze,” she said. “You’re a guy. You expect me to believe you’ve led a sheltered life?”
“Absolutely.” He grinned. “I’d never had sex with a Realtor before.”
That won him another tap on the shoulder. And a soft laugh. She was happy. He was the reason. It made him feel at least ten feet tall.
His grin faded and he dropped another light kiss on her lips.
“You want the truth?”
She nodded.
“I’d never had a night like that in my life,” he said softly. “You were…you were everything I’d ever dreamed. And then I woke up and you were gone and, for a couple of seconds, I thought that maybe I really had dreamed it all.”
Her smile dimmed. “I shouldn’t have run away.”
“Hey.” He put his hand under her chin. “We settled this last night, remember? If you were wrong to take off, I was equally wrong not to have gone after you.” And not to have checked out Young’s story. If only he could tell her that. “It’s all water under the proverbial bridge, honey. For both of us. Right?”
She swallowed hard. Her gaze dropped from his. She took a deep breath and when she looked up again, her eyes were bright with emotion. “I don’t want any more untruths between us, Zacharias. I left the way I did because—because…It was what you said. I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings. With wanting to stay right where I was, in your arms, in your bed.”
God, she was killing him. Her talk about untruths—such a nice, old-fashioned word—only made him think about his untruths and, hell, that wasn’t even what they were. They were outright lies.
She believed he’d come here to find her.
The truth was that he’d come here because Caleb had asked him to. He was Caleb’s spy.
Except, it wasn’t that simple.