Had that only been this morning? I laughed sheepishly. “Sorry? I swear I’m not usually this impatient.”
Which was the truth. I wasn’t so much impatient for his answer as desperate to help Forest, and this was the only way I knew how.
“I know.”
He took a bite from his linguine, and pure pleasure filled his expression, making something stir low in my belly.
“Good?” I asked, strangely pleased that I had recommended it.
“Amazing. God, this hits the spot.”
“Good. You needed this.”
“I needed linguine?”
“You needed pleasure. Something…” I gestured vaguely. “Something that pleased you, that made you happy, if only for a little bit.”
“For a man who doesn’t want to be called sweet, you really do say the nicest things.”
I groaned softly. What was it with him and that word? It was like a curse by now, or maybe it really was a deliberate attempt on his end to keep me in that friendzone. Not that I could fault him for that. Things between us were already complicated, and they would be even more so if we did indeed get married. Getting…involved would only muddy the waters even more.
But damn if I didn’t want to jump right in and stir up those waters.
“Shouldn’t every person want that for their…friend? For them to be happy and enjoy life?” I asked, mostly rhetorical, but Forest seemed to consider it, a little thinking frown appearing.
“Perhaps, but very few truly do. At least, in my experience.”
“Then maybe you haven’t been hanging out with the right people, sweetheart.”
He slowly nodded. “Maybe I haven’t. You’re sure as heck puttin’ every man to shame, darlin’.”
Darling? And with the Texas drawl he’d suddenly put on? Be still my beating heart.
Too bad this wasn’t a date.
Not. A. Date.
CHAPTER TEN
FOREST
I went to bed more confused than I had been before the… Well, it wasn’t a date. Dinner with a gorgeous guy who also wanted to marry me? There wasn’t a word for that, and I wondered if there should be. Surely I wasn’t the only person in the world in this position.
Flopping on my back, I stared down at my toes in an attempt to distract myself from what I really wanted to think about: Nash looking like sex on a stick in a form-fitting shirt and pants that left nothing to the imagination.
I’d stared at his ass twice—once when he went to the restroom, and the second time when he was slightly ahead of me so he could get the door on our way out of the restaurant.
And now, every time I blinked, I could see that peachy round thing behind my eyelids. He was so well-formed. From years of training, of course, and the way he’d had to keep it up for his current job. Every now and again, I’d get up in the morning and find him doing bicep curls on the patio with one hand, sipping coffee from the cup in the other and…
Ugh.
It was unfair to want him this much. How the hell was I going to survive a marriage to a man this gorgeous and this kindwithout being allowed to touch him? Because in spite of pressing me on the type of person I liked to date, he was very clear about refuting my compliments. Every time I called him sweet and kind, he’d pull a face and insist he was not.
I was reading him loud and clear, as much as it hurt. He was probably just trying to assess me so he could be prepared for anyone I chose to sneak over to the house once this whole thing was done.
If I agreed to it.
I hadn’t given him an answer tonight because I still didn’t have one. It wasn’t necessarily about saving my life, but it was about saving my ass. I was furious at the university for doing what they did, but in the quiet, still hours of the morning when I couldn’t sleep, I was forced to come to terms with the fact that I was in no condition to work anyway.
