Close Enough to Touch (Jackson Hole 1)

“Is that when you started hating girls like me?”

He shot a look at her and her eyes were back to normal now. Dark and mocking him. Yet something was different. She’d changed her makeup at some point. Instead of pure black, her makeup was smokier. Gray with a hint of violet at the corners. She looked softer. Maybe that was what was throwing him off. That, and the memory of her gasping into his ear as he got her off.

Jesus.

“Look, Grace. I’m sorry about last night. I was in a bad place when I went to the bar. This movie shoot, it’s… Then I saw you, and…”

“And? What? You don’t like girls like me. You’ve made that clear. So you saw me and, what?”

He shrugged. “I forgot about being pissed off. Forgot about the movie shoot. About my l

eg. My future.”

“Your future?”

He waved off the question. “All the bullshit. And I didn’t expect that the person helping me forget was the one who’d screwed me over.”

“Is that what I was doing? Helping you forget?”

He took his eyes off the road long enough to meet her gaze. Not that it did any good. She showed him nothing. It drove him crazy, that she could make herself so blank. “Isn’t that what I was doing for you? Helping you forget?”

She stared at him until he had to look back to the road. When he broke the gaze, she laughed that jaded laugh again. “It was sex, Cole. What you were doing for me was the same thing I was doing for you. Getting off.”

“I can get myself off,” he said. “I’d bet a hell of a lot of money that you’re perfectly capable of jacking off, too. So whatever it is for you, it isn’t just coming.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispered.

“No, I’m not. And I got really pissed because I thought you were one thing to me, and you turned out to be something else.”

“Well, I’m so sorry, Cole!” she snapped. “I guess I wasn’t the right tool for the job.”

He clenched his teeth together, but she was making him see that maybe things weren’t as black-and-white as he’d wanted them to be. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Not from her perspective. She couldn’t have known that what she’d done would stomp all over the most fragile parts of his life. The wounds that had healed all wrong. And if she couldn’t have known that, if it hadn’t been malicious, then Cole was being an asshole.

She’d slept with him. She’d been happy. And celebrating. She’d slept with him as part of that. And he’d thanked her for it by treating her like shit.

If she wasn’t the woman he wanted her to be, that wasn’t her problem.

Cole swallowed a curse and rubbed a hand against his thigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Shouldn’t have done what?” she challenged. “Fuck me?”

“No. I mean, that might be your take on it at this point.”

“No. I got off, right? The rest of it hardly matters.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” she asked. She offered a tight smile when he looked at her. “You’ve been honest, at least. You want my feelings to be hurt? You want me to feel like shit because you didn’t walk me to my door and tell me I was special afterward? Well, sorry. I don’t. It takes more than that, cowboy.”

“Grace. I’m sorry. Even if your feelings weren’t hurt. Even if you don’t give a shit and I was nothing more than a fun ride for you. I’m sorry. I like you, and I shouldn’t have—”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she said, her voice soft and yet somehow cutting through his words like a machete.

“I know a little. I wish I knew more.”

“Ha. You’ve made pretty sure you’re never going to know anything more. Girls like me? We don’t give that kind of knowledge up easily. And if you know anything about me, anything at all, then that was accidental. That wasn’t anything I meant to give you.”

“Yeah. I get that.” He knew she was trying to be tough, but she was breaking his heart. She didn’t want to show him anything, which just made him want to see it all.