“No, Mr.…” Oh God. What was she supposed to call him now? This was so messed up, so against every ounce of decency ingrained in her, that she cringed and looked away.
“Call me…” He stopped, blinked hard, and cleared his throat. “Andrew. Call me Andrew.”
“No, you don’t scare me, Andrew. Although…” She looked at him askance.
“I should.”
That made her smile. “Yes, you probably should.”
“Not as smart as you look, I guess,” he said, and that broke through whatever this was, this shell of fear or regret that had hardened around her. She laughed.
“Definitely not.”
“Come here,” Andrew said.
With a sigh, she leaned her head in, set it on his shoulder, and sucked in his strength. His arms stayed warm and close, and through it all, she felt the beating of his heart, steady and slow. He was comforting her, she knew, but she couldn’t rid herself of the guilty evidence of arousal or the nervy need thrumming through her overheated veins. She needed to stay here, in his embrace, for just a little while longer and pretend everything was as it should be, wishing she could memorize his smell.
After a bit, George pulled back, hating herself for doing it. “I think we should go.”
“Oh. Sure. Of course,” he said and, after helping her down, rose with a grimace that made her wonder, again, about his limp. “I’ll wait for you and walk you to your car.”
And just like that, their moment of folly was over.
OceanofPDF.com
9
“So, Doc,” Clay said as she led him out front, “you know of a good place where I can get my tattoos removed?”
“Wh—” She turned to him, then cut herself off, and he saw, with regret, her body loosen, sink in on itself a little. “You’d have to go to Richmond.”
“All right.” He nodded, wondering what the shit he was doing. He had that weird sensation that he sometimes got of being just a shell, with nothing on the inside but hollow space. It was a feeling a lot like regret, except it couldn’t be—not for this, not for what they’d begun in that exam room. But maybe, just possibly, he was feeling it for her. Empathic regret. Like she hadn’t meant to take up with someone like him.
“I’m sorry, Andrew.”
“Don’t be.” He looked around and saw her car, parked alone up ahead under that fucking unlit streetlamp. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Oh, you don’t nee—”
His expression must have stopped her, because she just shrugged and let him walk beside her to her door, which was—surprise—unlocked.
“Got to start locking your door, George.”
“Why?”
“Don’t remember what happened last weekend?”
“How would locking my door change what happened?”
He shook his head and smiled. “You people and your small-town delusions.”
She ignored that and asked, “You hungry?”
“I’m…” He hesitated, taking in all the shit crowding his insides, and realized that, yes, there was, in fact, a big, yawning hole there. When had he last eaten? “Yeah,” he finished with a smile. “Wanna go to the Nook?”
“Come home with me,” she said, probably with more of an undertone than intended, and his pulse hitched back up a notch.
“Yeah?” he asked in something close to a whisper.
