And what if he wants more from you?
She wanted to ignore that thought, the way the fear intensified, but how could she? It was right there, flipping in her stomach, urging her to run far, far away, because she didn’t need another person needing more from her.
It does not have to be forever. It’s not forever. So, there was nothing to get worked up about. No reason for the flutters of fear to mix with the flutters of him looking at her like she was the center of the world.
Please. He’d been trying to get her to have sex with him. Beginning and end of that story. That was all she was after too, all that could ever happen. So.
So. This was all crazy, stupid emotion getting in the way of reason and sense, and that was not acceptable. She would push it away, bury it down, and find a way to get back to where they’d been.
The way he’d tackled her to the ground, his big, hard body on top of hers, popped to mind. Something so foolish and…fun. And the way he looked at you, was anything but.
“Okay, brain, I have had enough.” She forced herself to turn the knob and open the door and step into Dan’s kitchen.
He was standing in front of his stove, still in his sweaty, grimy running clothes. It did not lessen the appeal of him, not when she could so clearly visualize him naked.
“I…” She cleared her throat because something clogged there. “Could I have…an egg?”
He gave her a one-eyebrow-quirked look, like she was crazy. Yeah, you’re definitely crazy. But he was so hot and he cooked, even if it was just scrambled eggs. There was no reason on the face of the earth not to let this little thing…be a thing. Temporarily.
So she cleared her throat again, and although she was too big of a coward to look directly at him, she forced the uncomfortable words out of her mouth. “I’m sorry. For getting weird. About things.”
“Weird. About things.” He shook his head. “Yeah, that about covers it.”
“I’m not very good with people.”
“See, what’s funny about that, Mel, is you seem to do pretty damn okay with just about everyone in town.”
“I…” She didn’t know how to respond to that, mainly because it gave away something she didn’t want to be dwelling on too much. He was different. He was special. She wasn’t trying to get anything out of him, wasn’t trying to rebuild the Shaw name with him. He didn’t matter, and in some nonsensical way, that made him matter even more. “God, I’m tired.”
His mouth quirked at that as he pushed the eggs around in the pan. “You know why?”
“Not really.”
He actually chuckled that time. “You’re trying too hard.”
“It’s all I have,” she said quietly, perhaps more seriously than the situation warranted. But it hit home. Because she was trying hard, but what other choice was there?
He didn’t say anything to that, and she didn’t know what else to say, or what to do, so she stood there still next to the door, hat in her hands.
“As much as I enjoy waiting on you, honey, why don’t you make the coffee and maybe we can press reset on this day.”
“We seem to have to do that a lot.”
He shrugged and she could feel his eyes on her as she moved to the coffeemaker. “Better to start over and try again than walk away and stew over it.”
“Is that why you want to play again? To prove you’re not…that you didn’t?” She swallowed, because she shouldn’t care about that, or want to know. But she did.
What was the harm in knowing? In asking? What was the harm in any of this? It was like letting out the pressure valve—all that steam that had built and built and built in her life was about to explode. So instead of exploding, she’d let some steam escape. Have some fun and good sex, and then when he left, she could go back to her life and her responsibilities.
Until the pressure builds again.
Well, she made it through twenty-eight years without needing to let a little loose, which meant after this, she’d probably make it twenty-eight more. By that time, she’d find something else to release the pressure.
So, she could know and ask about Dan. She could be with him, and she could feel things, as long as she didn’t feel permanent things—and, honestly, what were the chances of that?
*
Dan blinked at the eggs. It was hard to keep up with her sometimes, the cold, the hot, the lukewarm. But he didn’t know what this was, her asking about hockey. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say.
Maybe because he didn’t know how to answer that question. Of course he wanted to get back into it to prove he wasn’t a cheat. Of course he wanted to prove he could handle the pressure. Once, at least once in his life, he could handle it.