Her question takes me completely off guard and has me sputtering out a laugh. I swear she just mentioned playing dirty to throw me off track. “What in the fuck are you talking about?” There’s nothing I can do but shake my head and stare at her like she’s lost her damn mind.
She shrugs innocently enough. “It’s the quickest way to know the truth. I thought maybe the stick up your ass was because you were feeling guilty about your wife back home, and so I just figured I’d ask… but now I have to keep trying to figure out why it’s there.”
“Gotta love a woman who’s straight to the point,” I murmur. “Let me be clear. There is no spouse at home.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Or girlfriend,” I add on, and immediately question why I felt the need to clarify that point as well when she didn’t ask.
“You and Stella weren’t…” Her voice trails off as she leaves the question open-ended.
“Once upon a time… but no, we weren’t. Not for as long as I can remember,” I answer her, but that last night we spent up here on the rooftop flashes through my mind. The kiss. The promise. The once-in-a-lifetime.
And for just a moment I get caught up in the memory before I realize she threw me off my game. “Uh-uh. Don’t think I didn’t catch that you just asked me a question twice.” I go to reach for the bottle, and she swats my hand away.
“In your dreams. You didn’t answer the first question, so if I have to drink, then you have to too! Your call or your turn.”
I just narrow my eyes and hold her stare, weighing my options and the shot ratio between us. “Rule breaker.”
“Sometimes it’s worth the risk,” she says, the air electrifying with sexual tension. The silence stretches between us, her eyes darting down to my lips and then back up to my eyes. “Your turn,” she whispers.
My body suddenly becomes very attuned to the proximity of hers along with that addictive scent of her perfume that calls on my libido. The memory of her lying out on my bed before me, tits jostling as we connected, hair like a wave of seduction, mouth parted on a moan, hijacks my thoughts. It causes my next question to die on my lips, and the one I tell myself I don’t even care about comes out before I can stop it. “That first night… in my room —”
“I’ll stop you right there and just save myself the embarrassment of answering whatever your question is.” She takes the shot, and my mind spins with the possibilities of what she thought I was going to ask her. Over what question was so bad that she wants to avoid it.
If this shit keeps up, I have a feeling I’m going to be carrying her down to her room, because she won’t be walking.
She shakes her head subtly to try and clear the alcohol that I’m sure is starting to warm her up some. “Why do you blame yourself for Stella’s death?”
Her question smothers the air around me. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times but one no one has said aloud before. And now that it’s out there, hanging like a flag in the breeze, I hear the ludicrousness in it… but I still don’t want to answer it.
“In case you missed it the first time you asked, what happened to Stella’s off-limits.” The steel in my voice is hard to miss. “Ask again.”
I hear the stutter in her breath as she exhales into the silence. “Why were you being so nice to me today? I mean… why’d you take me to the range?”
“Because regardless of what you think, chivalry isn’t dead, and I look out for those who are with me. Besides, that ass of yours is too fine to see something happen to it.”
I hear her breath catch again, and a riotous ache settles deep down inside me at knowing that a simple comment like that affects her so easily. And I don’t want to feel like this or to know my simple remark has that effect on her, so I stumble along to find a new question for her.
“Where are you from? What’s your story?”