“It was his decision to end it,” she says quietly.
The way she says it tells me that’s just the tip of the iceberg. That there’s so much more to the story than her childhood sweetheart simply moving on. But more information would require another bargain on my part, and I’m not about to do jumping jacks or pose for glamour shots featuring my scars, so I don’t dig any deeper. Yet.
“Okay,” I say simply. Then I jerk my head in the direction of the treadmills. “Let’s see how good a listener you are.”
“What?” she asks, clearly confused by the change in topic.
“Those breathing tips I gave you the other day,” I reply. “Let’s see them in action.”
She tilts her head a little as though wondering at her easy escape from a shitty conversation, but then she shrugs and heads toward the treadmill.
“So, I changed my mind. I want to talk about the elephant in the room,” she says, putting her hands on her hips.
Good God. What is it about this girl in workout clothes that sets me on fire?
“What elephant?” I ask, trying not to remember that her collarbone tastes as good as it looks.
“Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that last night you had your tongue down my throat? Your fingers in my panties?”
Heat rushes over my body, and I focus all of my mental energy on the dull ache in my leg to keep from doing exactly that again.
“We’re not talking about that,” I mutter.
“You’re really quite bad at it, you know,” she says, punching the treadmill into a fast one. “It’s no wonder you’re single. I mean—”
I open my mouth to tell her that she obviously enjoyed everything I did to her, and if she’s forgotten, I’m happy to give an encore. But then I see the smile that she tries to hide. She’s baiting me.
I narrow my eyes before swatting her hand out of the way and adjusting the speed on her treadmill myself.
Within seconds, I have her sprinting at a pace that makes it impossible for her to talk. Focusing on her running also keeps me from doing what I really want to do, which is yanking her off the treadmill and having my way with her until she can’t even think about complaining.
But even as the thought crosses my mind, a more dangerous one replaces it. Next time my lips are on Olivia Middleton, I want her to be the initiator.
I want her. But more than that, I want her to want me.
Chapter Fifteen
Olivia
“Did you know that Andrew Jackson was over six feet tall, but only like a hundred and forty pounds?” I ask, pulling my feet beneath me and turning more fully toward the fireplace.
“Yes.”
I give Paul a look. “How would you know that?”
“Because I’ve read the book,” he says, never looking up from his own book, which, as far as I’ve been able to tell, is some huge tome on philosophy.
“You have?”
“No. I made that up.”
“You did?”
That gets him to look up, gray eyes bursting with exasperation. “Are you trying to drive me insane?”
I give him a shit-eating grin that says, Sure am. “But seriously, you’ve read this book?”
“Yeah, last year. It’s good. Something you’ll figure out once you commit to actually reading it instead of talking at me every two minutes.”
He makes a good point, and in theory I do want to make it through this book. These hours in front of the fireplace in the late afternoon while both of us read are my favorite part of the day.
The only trouble is, it’s not my favorite part of the day because of the reading. It’s because it’s only in these quiet, uninterrupted hours with Paul that he temporarily abandons the haunted look as he loses himself in his book. And that is so much better than anything I’m reading.