She drank half of it before she set it on the table next to the bed. “Thank you. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.”
He lay back on the bed and adjusted the pillows behind him. “You’re welcome. I drank two glasses, so I figured you were thirsty.”
She rested on her side, facing him. “Where did you grow up? Before you said your family moved here for Dani.”
He chuckled. “Until I was fifteen, we lived in a place called No Nuts.”
“What?” She laughed. “You’re lying.”
He held up his right hand. “Swear on my bike. It’s a little town in Ohio, about an hour from Cincinnati.”
“Why is it called No Nuts?”
“Well, the story goes there was a nut farmer?—”
“A nut farmer?” she asked.
“I don’t know what else to call him,” he said. “Anyway, there was a guy who grew nuts—walnuts and pecans. One day, he called the local police to report a crime.”
“Someone stole his nuts?”
He mock-glared at her. “Can I tell the story?”
“Sorry. Please go on.”
“As I was saying, he called the local police to report someone had broken in and ruined all his nuts. Turns out a family of squirrels had nested in his nut cellar and had been eating his nuts all winter. When the police told him there wasn’t anything they could do, he shouted, ‘But I ain’t got no nuts!’ And that’s how the town got its name.”
Abby laughed. “That story can’t be true.”
Tinker shrugged. “I don’t know if it is or not, but that’s the local folklore. I’ve heard stranger things.”
“How long were you in the Marines?” she asked.
“About six years, give or take,” he said.
“That must have been tough.”
“It was, but it was what I needed to do at the time.”
“You must have been young when you went in,” she said.
“I enlisted as soon as I could.”
Her brows furrowed. “What about Dani? Did she go with you?”
They were getting into uncomfortable territory. He wasn’t ready to share that information yet. “She lived with a family friend until I was out of the Marines.”
Abby got quiet. He didn’t mean to shut her down, but he couldn’t talk about what’d happened. Not there, naked in his bed after some of the best sex of his life. It was an ugly story, and he didn’t want to dirty their time together. Telling her would lead to more questions.
Thankfully, she moved on. “Um…so…the straps.”
He grinned. “I was wondering if you’d get around to asking.”
“Is that something you do a lot?”
Shifting onto his side to face her, he propped his head on his hand. “Do you mean am I in the BDSM lifestyle?”
She shrugged, toying with the edge of the sheet. “I guess.”
