Her blush deepened as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Would you stop?” she asked, exasperated.
“I’m not doing anything,” he said, though he knew it wasn’t exactly true. He made her nervous.
Bree. Of all the women he knew, she was the last one he would have expected to be nervous around him. Was it a new thing? Or just something she’d hidden?
The waiter appeared once again, quiet and fast, placed a rum and coke in front of Bree, then disappeared as quietly as he’d arrived. She grabbed it, took one large gulp, then another. From under her lashes, she watched him.
“What about you?”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean, what about me?”
He shrugged restlessly. “Who did you have some secret crush on in high school? Basketball player? Somebody on the football team?”
She took another sip from her drink and then set it on the table before answering. “High school was fifteen years ago. I barely remember half the kids in my homeroom class.”
“You telling me you don’t remember your biggest crush in high school?”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “What does it matter? It was high school.”
“Just making conversation. I don’t really remember ever seeing you hang out with a particular guy.” And he would have noticed, at least if it happened during their freshman year or even halfway through their sophomore year. Probably even beyond, because even though he stopped thinking about her like that, she had been his girl’s best friend. Most teens did double dates from time to time, but Bree hadn’t. Hell, come to think about it, he really couldn’t think of a single guy throughout high school that she’d really spoken to.
In college, she’d dated some. He could remember those guys. One had been a jackass and she’d dumped him after two dates. One had lasted a few months. During their senior year, the guy she had dated had actually lasted throughout the year. That one had seemed serious but then the guy had died.
“You don’t date much.”
It wasn’t a question and she didn’t treat it as one. A wry smile curled her lips and she lifted one shoulder carelessly. “I’m picky.”
“Picky about what?”
“The guys I date.”
“What are you so picky about?” Bracing his elbows on the table, he leaned forward. What made a woman so picky that she went on less than two or three dates a year? He knew she got asked out a lot—or at least it seemed a regular occurrence, from what he’d seen. No surprise. She was flat-out sexy, she was funny in a quiet, understated way and she was one of the kindest people he’d ever known.
“Maybe I just haven’t found what I’m looking for yet.”
“What are you looking for?”
She rolled her eyes. “Geez, Colby, what is this? Twenty questions? If a guy asks me out and I’m interested, I’ll go out with him. I’m usually just not interested.”
“You’re here with me.”
Her dark-gray eyes narrowed and she said acerbically, “So apparently, I’m not picky enough. I hadn’t realized I was going to get the Spanish Inquisition.”
He slid his hand across the table and took hers. Lacing their fingers together, he whispered, “If we’re doing an inquisition, does that mean I can get you on the rack later?”
Her eyes widened. A startled laugh escaped her and she clapped her free hand over her mouth, muffling the sound. “I don’t do racks on the first date.”
He was flirting with her. Okay, Bree wasn’t an idiot, but it took her a little while to actually realize the truth. Colby was actually flirting with her. Why the hell is that such a shock? He had his hand in your panties and his tongue halfway down your throat a couple of hours ago. He more or less said he wanted to sleep with you. Why shouldn’t he flirt?
Still—it was weird. Seriously weird.
And unsettling as hell. Not just because it felt like some bizarre fantasy come to life either. You and I both know we’ve gone past being just friends. Actually, she hadn’t let herself think along those lines, even after he’d kissed her outside the winery. She just wasn’t ready to let herself think about that, because Bree was a linear type of thinker. If she knew one thing was coming, she started to plan for what happened after.
Here, the “after” that seemed most likely was that Colby wasn’t seriously interested in her and once he got whatever this was out of his system, she’d go back to being a friend—probably not even that.
Definitely not something she was equipped for.
By the time the waiter brought the check, she felt as though she was going to splinter into a thousand pieces from the pressure. Trying to keep it light, trying not to let him see how he affected her, trying not to read too much into his casual, sexy flirtation.