She cocked a surprised eyebrow. “A movie?”
He could tell his suggestion had surprised her. “Yes, a movie. Evidently, you’re not spending enough time having fun, and everyone needs to let loose now and then. There’s a new Tyler Perry movie coming out this weekend that I want to see. Would you like to go with me?”
Lucia’s heart began pounding in her chest as she quickly reached the conclusion that Derringer had to have figured out that she was the woman who’d brazenly shared his bed. What other reason could he have for asking her out? Why the sudden interest in her when he’d never shown any before?
Their eyes held for what seemed like several electrifying moments before she finally broke eye contact with him. But what if he didn’t know, and asking her out was merely a coincidence? There was only one way to find out. She glanced back over at him and saw he was still staring at her with that unreadable expression of his. “Why do you want to take me out, Derringer?”
He gave her a smooth smile. “I told you. You’re spending too much time studying and working and need to have a little fun.”
She still wasn’t buying it. “We’ve known each other for years. Yet you’ve never asked me out before. In fact, you’ve never shown any interest.”
He chuckled. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to show an interest, Lucia, but I love my life and all my body parts.”
She raised a brow and paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean?”
He took a sip of his iced tea and then his mouth curved ruefully. “I was warned away from you early on and took the warning seriously.”
She nearly dropped the fork from her hand and had to tighten her grip to place it back down. “What do you mean you were warned away from me?” That was impossible. She’d never had a boyfriend jealous enough to do such a thing.
A grin flashed across his face. “Your dad knows how to scare a man off, trust me.”
Her head began spinning at the same time her heart slammed hard against her rib cage. “My dad warned you away from me?”
He smiled. “Yes, and I took him seriously. It was the summer you were about to leave for college. You were eighteen and I was twenty-two and returning home from university. You attended the Westmoreland Charity Ball with your parents before you left. He saw me checking you out, probably thought my interest wasn’t honorable, and pulled me aside and told me to keep my eyes to myself or else…”
Lucia swallowed. She knew her dad. His bark was worse than his bite, but most people didn’t know that. “Or else what?”
“Or else my eyes, along with another body part I’d rather not mention, would get pulled from their sockets. The last thing he would put up with was a Westmoreland dating his daughter.”
Lucia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She could see her father making a threat like that because he was overprotective of her. But she doubted Derringer knew how much his words thrilled her. He had been checking her out when she was eighteen?
She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and couldn’t help noticing the movement of his gaze to her mouth. Her skin began burning at the thought that he had been attracted to her even when she hadn’t had a clue. But still…
“Aw, come on, Derringer, that was more than ten years ago,” she said in a teasing tone.
“Yes, but you probably don’t recall a few years ago I dropped by the paint store to make a purchase and you were working behind the counter and waited on me.”