“Going to sleep?” he asked, his voice teasing.
“No. Enjoying the aftermath. Making love with you is pretty amazing.”
“Thank you. Amazing is much better than nice.”
She smiled, opened her eyes, then shifted so her chin was on his chest and she could stare into his eyes. “That’s not what I mean. The other guys I was with—all two of them—weren’t like you. Or maybe it was me. But I never felt…” She sighed. “It wasn’t the same thrill ride.”
He frowned. “Why not? Don’t take this wrong, Annie, but you’re easy.”
She sat up, pulling the sheet with her so she stayed covered. Easy? She’d been thinking love and romance and he thought she was easy?
He sat up as well, then raised both hands. “I take it back. I should have said responsive. I’ve been with women who are difficult to get over the edge. You’re not one of them.” He smiled. “That’s a good thing. Having you do what you do is the best kind of positive reinforcement.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“It wasn’t like that with the other guys?”
“No. Sex was kind of…uninteresting.” And she hadn’t been truly in love with them. She got that now.
“No fireworks?”
“Not even a sputter. I liked it, but I never got the fuss.” Now the fuss was perfectly clear. The fuss was her favorite part.
He shifted his pillow so it was behind his back, then leaned against the headboard. “Tell me about these guys.”
“There’s not much to say. I met Ron in college. He was studying engineering. I’m not sure he’d been with anyone before. I know I hadn’t. We sort of figured it out together.”
“Or not,” Duncan said. “If you weren’t happy.”
“I was happy.” She hadn’t known there was more. Not physically or emotionally.
“Satisfied, then.”
“I didn’t know what to ask for. He was funny and smart and we had a good time. I thought everything was fine.”
She and Ron had been together nearly three years. She thought she was in love with him and had assumed he felt the same way.
“At the beginning of our senior year, he ended things,” she admitted. “He said he’d met someone else. That he didn’t mean to hurt me, but she was the one. But that he and I should still be friends.” She wrinkled her nose. “I passed on that offer.”
“Smart move. And guy number two?”
Should there have been more men? Was two a small number? Duncan probably had dozens of women before and after Valentina.
“A.J.,” she said with a sigh. “He was the assistant principal at my school. I met him my first day. We went out right away. Everything was so easy.”
Duncan realized he’d made a huge mistake in asking about Annie’s love life. While he wanted the information, he didn’t like hearing about her with other men. The fact that the relationships had ended badly didn’t change his sense of annoyance. He wanted to find both Ron and A.J. and beat the crap out of them. How dare either of them hurt Annie. Not that he wanted her with one of them now. He wanted her for himself.
Until the holidays were over, he reminded himself. Nothing more.
“He was also funny and smart. He loved kids.” Annie shook her head. “I don’t know. It was as if we were destined to be together. Everything fell into place. No complications. We were talking about getting married by our fifth date.”
Something heavy seemed to fall into his stomach. He ignored the sensation. “What happened?”
“While I was dreaming about a June wedding, he got a job offer from a school in Baltimore. He wanted me to go with him. Jenny and Julie were seniors in high school and living with me. I couldn’t just leave them. So he went without me. We agreed to date long distance, seeing each other once a month.”
“Did you miss him?”
“Sure.” She shifted so she was sitting next to him, then leaned her head against his shoulder. “I thought everything was fine. Over Memorial Day weekend, he told me while there wasn’t anyone else, he wasn’t interested in dating me anymore. Time away had shown him he wasn’t as interested in me as he’d thought. But he would very much like us to be friends.” She drew in a breath. “I never knew what went wrong.”