Unless I have pie with him, it appears.
I don’t respond to his statement. Instead, I make myself finish the pie. It’s so damn good that it isn’t a hardship. But Smith’s body heat beside me, the look I’m seeing in his eyes—because he still hasn’t taken them off me—it’s all making my body surge and my nipples harden and my pussy swell and dampen.
This man makes me have dirty thoughts.
I can’t cave. I cannot cave.
Smith’s hand slips down to stroke my jean-clad thigh, and I fight the instinctive urge to arch under his touch and purr like a fucking cat. One night of sex, and he already figured out how I like to be touched. The man is a sex genius, that’s for sure.
I can’t cave.
I drop the fork on the plate and declare with as much casual attitude as I can muster, “That was so good. Thank you.” I force a lightness in my tone. “But you haven’t finished your piece yet.”
“Why are you here in Rock Bridge?” he asks me out of nowhere, his fingers dancing along my kneecap.
My stomach tightens, and I have dual feelings of discomfort and arousal at the same time. I don’t want to talk about Roger. Don’t want to think about him. But Smith opened up to me a little and shared something difficult with me. I should do the same. I select my words carefully so as not to give everything away. “Well, I got this job opportunity, and I took it. I had some stuff happening in my personal life, so coming to a new town was a good way for me to start over.”
“Who was he?” That incessant hand keeps touching me, sliding up my thigh to caress my hip, nudge under the band of flesh exposed above my jeans and touch my back.
“You just assume there’s a guy involved,” I lob back at him. I mean, he’s right, but I don’t want to admit it like that.
“So there isn’t?” His brow is quirked, his gaze heavy on mine. He already knows the answer; I can see it in his eyes. He’s just waiting for me to confirm it.
“My ex,” I relent. “Things didn’t end well with us. I needed a new scene.”
His hand pauses in caressing my back. “Did he hurt you?” The words are said quietly, but I can hear the concern in them.
“Not…” My hand flutters to my throat as I’m suddenly inundated with mental images of the rocky, tumultuous relationship I escaped. “Not…in the way you think. It was just a bad thing for me.” I clear my throat. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore right now, if you don’t mind.”
“He’s why you have the baseball bat. Makes sense.” With that, Smith resumes stroking my back, inching his hand up to the middle of my spine. “When’s the last time you’ve gone skinny dipping?”
I blink at the rapid conversation change. “What?”
He gives me a wide-toothed grin that knocks me back in my seat. Smith’s smile at full wattage is devastating. Oh God, this man could really do me in. My brain is screaming danger, danger! “You’ve never been, have you.”
“Swimming naked is not a requirement of graduating into adulthood,” I say defensively, trying to pretend I’m not fully absorbed in him. Smelling his scent, listening to the rough timbre of his voice, feeling his fingers swirl circles on my skin, now inching closer to my waistband. “Not everyone is as pervy as you.”
His hand stills again, and he seems to pull back into himself.
Aunt Sylvia chooses that moment to come over. “Now you tell those two hooligan heathen brothers of yours to get themselves in here soon. I don’t even have to tell you what I’m gonna do if they don’t.”
Smith gives her a tight smile. He moves his hand to the table surface, and I suddenly feel bereft. What did I do? What did I say wrong? Somehow I fumbled things; all the talking we’d done seems to be over now. “I’ll be sure to tell them.” He goes to dig in his wallet, but Aunt Sylvia shoots him a glare so hard, he finally lifts his hands in the air. “Fine, but one day you have to let me pay you. This isn’t how you make money in a business.”
“Trust me, I’m doing just fine.” She moves away.
When she’s gone, he grabs a twenty out of his wallet anyway and leaves it on the table. I guess that’s our cue to go.
I feel deflated when we rise from the table. I want to say something, but I don’t know what. We step outside into the mild night air, and before he mounts on the bike, I touch his shoulder. He shifts his head so I see his profile.
“Hey. I…don’t know what happened back there.”
His walls are up; I can’t read his face at all. “Nothing. Totally fine.”
“Right. That’s why you just suddenly pulled away.” Frustration wells in me. My ex used to play these games—tell me nothing was wrong, nothing was wrong, then explode at me when I didn’t react the way he wanted me to, didn’t comfort him about whatever phantom injury I committed against him.