He pointed a finger at her nose. “Andthat’swhy we can’t act on all that crazy physical attraction that crackles between us, as you so aptly put it. ’Cause you have sex with men you’re in relationships with. And I don’t do relationships.Ever.”
That’swhat this was all about? If she rolled her eyes any harder, she was afraid they might get stuck backward.
“Right,” she scoffed. “So says every commitment-phobic man right before he finds the right person andpoof!Suddenly he’s in a relationship.”
“Maybe so.” He shrugged. “But that’s not the case with me.Ever.”
“You’re startin’ to sound like a broken record.”
“Just trying to make sure what I’m saying sinks in.”
She cocked her head, studying him for a minute. “You’re tellin’ me that you’veneverhad a romantic relationship? Not once in all your thirty-four years?” She knew her tone was disbelieving. She couldn’t help it. Shedidn’tbelieve him. He was too handsome, toowonderfulto have escaped all the hooks women must’ve thrown his way since the moment he passed puberty.
“Nope.”
“Not even a will-you-go-with-me, puppy love, hold-hands-at-recess thing back when you were in elementary school?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“No first love in high school? A girl you still sometimes think back on with sepia-toned fondness?”
“Not a one.”
“How about a woman who you would visit for a little…um…R & R when you’d get leave from the Navy?”
He pursed his lips.
“Aha!” She pointed at his face. “I knew it! Youhavebeen in a relationship.”
“Women,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Plural. As in a couple dozen different women I’d rotate through depending on my location and their schedules.”
She began blinking so rapidly that the world looked like it was caught under a strobe light. “A coupledozen?” She nearly strangled on the last word.
“Give or take.” He shrugged.
“S-so…” She shook her head. “I guess…that begs the question: Just how many people haveyouslept with?”
Even in the shadows, she could see the line that formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t know.”
“S-so…” She had to shake her head again to make her tongue work properly. “You don’tknow?”
“I’ve never counted.”
“S-so…” Okay, nowshewas the broken record. “You’ve nevercounted?”
“Stop repeating everything I say in the form of a question,” he said, the line between his eyebrows deepening.
“Can you at least… I don’t know…” She made a rolling motion with her hand. “Ballpark it for me?”
He screwed up his face and seemed to be making a mental tally. Two seconds stretched to five. Five stretched to ten. Out on the pilings somewhere, a roosting seagull took offense to something its neighbor did, screeching its displeasure. The lighthouse overhead clicked mechanically every time it made a full rotation. Beneath them, the fort groaned, shifting with the sands like an old man trying to find a more comfortable position.
“Do you need an abacus?” she demanded when she couldn’t stand it anymore.I mean, really?
He shook his head. “Do people still use those?”
