Looking Inside

She laughed and the color in her cheeks deepened. “Well yeah, obviously.” They shared a laugh. He had a strong urge to go over to her side of the table, push her down on the booth cushions and ravage her like an animal. Her bee-stung lips alone were turning him into a wolf, but add in the sparkle of her big eyes, and her delicate, pretty face, and the fullness of her breasts behind her sweater and the memory of how sweet her mouth was, or the incredible responsiveness of her nipples beneath his tongue and . . .

Well, it was a wonder he could even go through the motions of being a civilized man in a restaurant.

“Go on. You were thinking about something else, right?” he prompted her.

“I was thinking about your bad luck with women and how you were taking a break from them.” Her gaze jumped up to his and then returned to her picked-over salad. “I mean . . . before all this.”

“Before you walked into that coffee shop, you mean?”

“I guess. It’s just—”

She cut herself off and swallowed thickly.

“What, Eleanor?” he persisted, her obvious trepidation on the topic making him even more curious.

“Well . . . it’s . . . the windows. I mean, I’ve only seen you through them seven, maybe eight, times over the past year or so. It’s not like I was spying on you every night or something. Recently, you’ve been alone, of course. And usually, your curtains were closed . . .”

“Yeah, okay,” he prompted when she faded off yet again. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with the topic of her having watched him having sex with other women, but it was part of Eleanor’s story. He accepted that she had a proclivity for voyeurism, even if he was far fonder of her bent for exhibitionism. When she exhibited for him, at least.

“Well, it’s just .

. . the most I saw you take a woman to bed was twice.”

“And you’re wondering if I’m even capable of monogamy, is that it?” he asked her dryly, sitting back in the booth.

“No. I’m wondering, given your track record, if a long-term exclusive relationship is even something you’re really interested in, or you just think you are because you keep running into women who try to manipulate you. And when they show their true colors, you have a ready excuse to . . .”

“Dump them?” he asked when she faded off.

She nodded.

“So you do think all my problems with women are down to me.”

“No, I wasn’t trying to make it black-and-white. Things like this are usually a lot more complicated than that.”

He shrugged and tossed his napkin on the table. “Maybe you’re right. That’s one of the things I’m trying to figure out. But the fact of the matter is, honesty is important to me. Do you know why I broke up with my last girlfriend?”

“Alessandra, you mean?”

“No. There was someone after Alessandra. Jamie. She was the last straw.”

“Oh,” she mouthed before she cleared her throat. “I’m a little scared to ask. What did Jamie do?”

“I caught her poking holes in my condom supply with a pin.”

She blanched and leaned back in her seat. She looked genuinely appalled . . . maybe even a little sick, and Trey didn’t think it was an act.

“That’s despicable.”

He shrugged his agreement and took a sip of his water.

“I’m not surprised you swore off women,” she said. He glanced up and met her stare. “I’m shocked you’re willing to be with me, to be honest.”

“So am I, a little. But the whole thing with you, the entire setup . . . it felt different than any time before,” he admitted slowly.

“Because I was so bald-faced about it all?”

“Maybe.”