It was all apparently exiting her body through her tear ducts. Damn it.
“Hey,” Peter said, pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her even more completely. “Hey, hey. It’s okay.”
“You’re so nice,” she told him.
His laughter was a rumble in his chest. “Not really,” he said. “But I’m okay with you thinking that I’m being nice when I’m really just trying to shorten the time it’ll take before we can, you know.”
She did know. She also knew that the responsible adult thing to do would’ve been to have a conversation in which they discussed the high emotions that had led to that unexpected orgasm, because really, where was this going to go besides a place of hurt or awkwardness? Despite knowing that, she threw caution to the wind as she wiped her eyes and smiled and said, “Hat trick. I’m with you on that. As long as you’re in a tent.”
“Where’s the tent?” he asked in response.
“In the garage. Left side, top shelf. Plastic container. Purple. Airtight. Spider-proof.”
His smile broadened. “Of course.”
“California has someverynasty spiders. Black widows—”
He kissed her as he moved her off his lap. “Your backyard or mine?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Maddie risked a glance at Dingo. He was clinging to his steering wheel with both hands as he drove, his eyes focused fiercely on the freeway ahead of them.
The earthquake had shaken him up and gotten his adrenaline flowing—or so he’d said. So much so that he’d insisted they forget about sleeping and drive through the night, hit Sacramento at just past dawn.
But Maddie knew that it wasn’t the earthquake that had shaken him—it was the fact that after he’d grabbed on to her to try to protect her as his car rattled and shook, he’d kissed her.
She’d kissed him back. In fact, they’d made out for a good long time—until he’d jumped away from her as if he’d been bitten by a snake.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked him now.
He laughed, but it was a sound of despair, not joy. “Nope.”
“Well,Iwanna talk about it,” she said. “I don’t know what the big deal is. I like you and you seem to like me—”
“Fiff,” he said. “Teen. As in: You. Are.Fifteen.”
“Drama, drama, drama, drama,” Maddie said on an exasperated exhale. “So what?”
“So what?” he said. “Sowhat?So I could go to jail. I’d have to register as a sex offender, forever. Forever,Mads. It happened to a friend of my cousin.”
“What happened to your accent?” she asked.
“It’s fake!” he shouted. “I’m fake! Everything’s fucking fake, all right? So, see, you don’t really like me after all! Say the word, I’ll turn around and take you home!”
“Well, that’s stupid,” she said. “If you take me home, you’d practically be handing me over to Nelson. And until I get the money or the proof that Fiona was the one who stole it, you’d pretty much be sentencing me to death.”
“Fuck,” he said, because she was right.
“You know, I think maybe I like you more now,” she told him. “So, really, all this time, you’ve been, what? Playing a character?” She imitated his Australian accent. “I’m Dingo from down under.That’s pretty freaking brilliant, Richard. I bet most girls really go for that.”
“See, you are mad. No one calls me Richard unless they’re mad at me.”
It was weird—that flat California accent coming out of his face, his mouth.
He glanced at her, several times, probably because she was staring at him. “What?”
“You’re a good kisser,” she said.
