She snorted. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
“Yeah, I know.” He couldn’t fight the grin that slipped on his face. “You don’t exactly make things easy on a guy.”
All the work he’d done to get past her defenses had been wasted. This woman had hunkered down and she was ready for a nuclear attack. She folded her arms and continued to give him her most scathing stare. “What do you want, Tripp?”
He stopped once he got within three feet of her. Any closer and he was sure she’d dart away like a doe in the woods. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel it,” he rasped. His voice was on theverge of cracking. Tripp could be hot headed. He could lose his temper and sabotage the things he wanted most. But he was also realistic enough to realize his mistakes, and the way he’d left things out by her car wasn’t his best.
Her gaze searched his. There was a flicker. It was brief, but he saw it clearly. Uncertainty. Nerves. Wendy wasn’t scared of him. But she was scared ofsomething.
“Despite our arguments, the ridiculous war we started, you can’t deny that there’s something between us. A spark. Chemistry. Whatever you want to call it—it’s there. It’s alive. It’sbreathing.” The last word was said with a hushed whisper. “There was only a glimmer of it at first, but it’s grown. Please tell me that I’m not going crazy.”
He watched her pull her lower lip between her teeth. Emotion flooded her eyes and she looked up and away. Then she shifted and her voice broke the silence. “But that’s the worst part, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Tripp inched closer to her.
She sniffed and rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand. “You. This.” She gestured wildly with that hand before crossing it with the other one once more.
Tripp couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. What was so bad about him? Was he so horrible that she couldn’t stand being attracted to him?
A harsh breath burst from her and she threw her fists down at her sides. “Olivia.”
He’d been closing in on her but that one word had him stopping in his tracks. “Olivia?”
She blinked rapidly then lifted her chin. The anger wasn’t in her eyes any longer. It had been replaced with pain. He wanted to swallow the distance between them and wrap her in a hug so tight she wouldn’t be able to escape. Wendy’s voice grew stronger. “Olivia Kingston. Though you’d remember her as?—”
“Olivia Greyson,” Tripp murmured. His brows furrowed as he attempted to make sense of how Wendy could possibly know that name. Were they friends? Wendy was from Georgia. It was entirely possible. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. “What about her?”
“She was my best friend. Still is,” she admitted quietly. “We grew up together and we stayed in touch even after I moved out here.”
“And… she told you… about us.” Of course, Olivia would tell her best friend about the guy she was dating. Out of everyone Tripp had dated, his relationship with Olivia had been the longest. Not only that, but she’d also been the one he’d gotten most serious with. That relationship above all others had stuck with him.
“Yes, she did.”
He became all too aware of the heat that flickered to life in his chest. He fought the urge to grip his shirt where the tightness in his chest deepened. “Are you listening to yourself?”
Wendy’s head reared back. He could practically hear her demand an explanation for his irritation.
Tripp spread his arms wide. “Olivia ismarried, Wendy, or have you forgotten that?”
“It doesn’t change the fact that you broke her heart.”
He threw his head back with a baffled laugh. “I dated a lot of women, yes. Some of them were short relationships, others were longer. None of them worked out because… well, that’s life.”
“And you’re trying to tell me that you’re not the type of guy who gets bored and simply moves on when things get hard?” Her words were a dagger to his chest. Maybe he had been scared. Maybe he was just good at reading people and he knew when it was time to move on. Regardless, he hated the way she seemed content at using his past against him.
He took one large step closer to her, eating up the distance between them. His voice lowered to a hiss as he got in her face. “None of that should matter. People change. They grow. My past is exactly that.My past. Forcing me to take accountability for my past actions is one thing. But holding it against me is something completely different.”
Her eyes were wide and her breathing had stuttered. The tension between them crackled in the air as he continued.
“We’re in the now, Wendy,” he rasped. “This thing between us? It’s real and it’s right in front of us. To ask me to ignore it would be an impossibility. These feelings… what I experience when I’m with you… it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.” Tripp rested his hand against the wood panel at her back just above her left shoulder. With his other hand, he grasped her chin. “Tell me right now, sweetness. Stop me if you don’t want this to happen. Because I want nothing more than to kiss you and I’m going to do it unless you stop me.”
Tripp wasn’t sure, but he thought she might be holding her breath. She’d pressed her body against the closed stall at her back.
“Breathe, Wendy,” he hissed. “I can’t have you passing out on me.”
Her chest rose suddenly and she whispered, “Tripp…”
His mouth crashed down on hers, consuming her, taking every last piece of her. This was more than fireworks. Kissing Wendy was sweet oblivion. Tripp lost himself in the feel of her. All this time she’d been holding back and for what? Out of some misguided loyalty? Or did her issues run deeper?
