“I already know what’s going to happen.” A couple of suits walked by and she lowered her voice. “You’ll take me to bed, it’ll be glorious and you’ll be insufferably smug about it. Hit repeat the next night and the next, for what...about three weeks?”
He bit back a grin. “Or four. So what’s the problem?”
His grin slipped as she sighed painfully. “That’s not what I want.”
“You’d rather I fumble around with no clue how to find your G-spot and then act like it’s okay when I come before you? Because I grew out of that before I hit my twenties. The smug part might be a little insufferable, but...” He winked. “I think you’ll forgive me.”
“You know what I’m saying, Dax. Don’t be difficult.”
He was being difficult?
“You want promises right out of the gate?” His temper flared and he reined it in. “I don’t operate like that. No one does.”
“Not promises. Just an understanding that we have the same basic goals for a relationship.”
He groaned. “This is not a computer program where you get to see the code before executing it. Why can’t we take it day by day? Why can’t it be like it was Saturday night?” His thumb found the hollow of her ear again. He spread his fingers against her warm neck and she didn’t slap his hand away. “Today is pretty good, too. Isn’t it?”
Her eyes shut for a brief moment. “Yeah. It’s nice. But we want different things and it’s not smart to start something when that hasn’t changed. Am I supposed to give up the hope for a committed, loving relationship in exchange for a few weeks of great sex?”
“Who said you have to give up anything? Maybe you’re going to gain something.” A lot of something if he had his way. He waggled his brows. “What have you got against great sex?”
“I’m a fan of great sex, actually.” She crossed her legs, pulling herself in tighter. “It’s especially great when I can count on it to be great for a long time instead of wondering when the end is coming.”
“Let’s break down precisely what it is that you want, shall we?” His head tilted as he contemplated the slight woman who’d had him on the edge of his seat since day one. “You want desperately to find your soul mate but when a guy isn’t exactly what you envisioned, you run screaming in the other direction. There’s no middle ground.”
Her fair skin flushed red. “That’s not true.”
It was, and she needed someone real to get her over her hang-ups and visions of fantasy lovers dancing in her head. “You have check boxes in your mind, profile questions that you want answered a certain way before you’ll go for it. No guy could ever perfectly fit the mold. So you stay home on Saturday nights and bury yourself in futuristic worlds to avoid finding out your soul mate doesn’t exist.”
“Soul mates do exist! I’ve seen it.”
“For some people.” It was a huge reversal for him to admit that much, and she didn’t miss it. “But maybe not for me, or for you. Did you ever think of that?”
“Never. Every male I’ve ever met, that’s the first thing I wonder. Is he my soul mate?”
Every male? Even him? “But you don’t take that first step toward finding out.”
“Just as you evaluate every woman to see if she’s the one, decide she can’t be, and then don’t stick around long enough to let her disappoint you.”
Deflection. They were both pretty well versed in it when the subject material grew too hot, and digging into the fact that no one ever measured up—for either of them—was smoking. Escaping unsinged seemed more and more unlikely. But neither of them had jumped out of the fire yet.
She was scared. He got that. It squeezed his chest, and what was he supposed to do with that? After all, he was the one who scared her.
“Yeah,” he allowed. “But I’m willing to admit it. Are you?”
She slumped down in his jacket, which almost swallowed her. Her wry smile warmed him tremendously. She looked so sweet and delectable sitting there wearing a jacket she hadn’t tried to manipulate her way into, and an urgent desire to strip her out of it built with alarming speed.
“It’s not fair, you know,” she complained. “Why can’t you be just a little stupid?”
He laughed long and hard at that and didn’t mind that she’d evaded his challenge. He already knew the answer anyway.