He narrowed his eyes. “I know where your door is located and we haven’t finished our conversation.”
“There’s nothing else left to say, Derringer. I’ve already told you more than I should have and I’m ashamed of doing it. Now that you know how I feel, I won’t let you take advantage of those feelings. For me it’s even more important to protect my heart more than ever. Nothing has changed from the way you’ve always looked at me. Most of the time you acted like I didn’t exist.”
“That’s not true. I told you I was attracted to you a few years back.”
“Yes, and I honestly thought it meant something and that you were seeking me out after all that time. Now I know you only did so because you knew I was the one who slept with you that night.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment and then asked, “How did you know? I figured you wouldn’t remember anything.”
He jammed his hands into his jeans. “Oh, I remembered just fine, and you left a little something behind that definitely jogged my memory. Something pink and lacy. I just couldn’t remember who they belonged to. My security system gave me the answers I needed. I had video cameras installed outside my place last month. You were the woman I saw entering my house that evening and the same one I saw sneaking out the next morning with a made-love-all-night-long look all over you.”
Lucia tightened her bathrobe around her. “Like I said, that wasn’t the purpose of my visit. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“It had been storming that night. You hate storms. Yet you came to check on me,” he said.
That realization touched something within him. The reason he knew about her aversion to storms was because of something Chloe had once teased her about from their college days in Florida that involved a torrential thunderstorm and her reaction to it.
“Doesn’t matter now.”
“And what if I say it matters to me?” he all but snarled.
“Then I would suggest you get over it,” she snapped back.
“I can’t. I want to be with you again.”
She narrowed her gaze. “And I told you that we won’t be together that way ever again. So get it through that thick head of yours that I won’t become just another woman you sleep with. You have enough of those.”
Emotions he had never felt before stirred in Derringer’s stomach. He should leave and not come back and not care if he ever saw her again, but for some reason she had gotten in his blood and making love to her again hadn’t gotten her out. Instead the complete opposite had happened; she was more in his blood than ever before.
“I’ll give you time to think about what I said, Lucia.” He turned to leave the room knowing she was right on his heels as he moved toward the living room.
“There’s nothing to think about,” she snapped behind him.
He turned back around after snagging his Stetson off the rack. “Sure there is. We will be making love again.”
“No, we won’t!”
“Yes, we will,” he said, moving toward the door. “You’re in my blood now.”
“I’m sure so are a number of other women in this town.”
There was no point in saying that although he’d had a lot of women in the past, none had managed to get into his blood before. When he got to the door, he put on his hat before turning back to her. “Get some rest. You’re going to need it when we make love again.”
“I told you that we—”
He leaned forward and swiped whatever words she was about to say from her lips with a kiss, effectively silencing her. He then straightened and smiled at the infuriated face staring back at him and tipped the brim of his hat. “We’ll talk later, sweetheart.”
He opened the door and stepped outside and it didn’t bother him one bit when she slammed the door behind him with enough force to wake up the whole neighborhood.