“You want something to eat or drink?”
“Newman, I’m okay, really. Stop trying to get me things.”
“I was just being nice.”
“I know you like to help people, and that’s admirable, really,” Hope said, then realized as he sat up that she maybe should have left this discussion inside her head.
“Admirable?”
The word was clipped.
“I mean, there’s no doubting your friends need you and stuff, but you have to stop sometime, surely?”
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, and if this is your attempt at after-sex talk, it sucks.”
He was getting angry, but Hope had gone this far, she wasn’t going to back away now. Besides, it wasn’t like he wasn’t always hassling her.
“I was just pointing out that you can’t help everyone, and you are needed. So if your helping is a result of your dad’s behavior toward you, you don’t have to do that anymore.”Excellent, Hope. You should have just kept your mouth shut like you usually do. See what happens when you try to be like other people?
“And this is your professional opinion, is it?”
He climbed off the bed, and grabbed his shorts. The man had a hot body, she noted. Every muscle defined, and the really sexy ones that dipped down on both sides of his stomach and disappeared into his shorts were mouthwatering. Broad shouldered, he was a very sexy male, if an angry one.
“Why is it okay for you to dissect my life and insult my clothing choices, and yet you, on the other hand, get offended when I get too personal?”
“I’m not offended,” he snapped, pulling up his T-shirt. “And I don’t know where this crap about my father came from.”
“This is you not being offended, is it?” Hope decided not to dig any deeper into the stuff about his father.
“Look.” He pushed a handful of curls out of his eyes, and they now stood off his head in a halo.Way too cute, Hope thought. “This was nice, and I’m sorry for what I did earlier, without your knowledge, but I really think it will work out… What?”
He added the last word when Hope rose to her knees, taking the sheet with her.
“You slept with me to apologize? You bastard!”
“No. Shit! That came out wrong.”
He was rattled, like she now was. What they’d just shared had rocked him like it had her… at least she hoped it had, because she was seriously unsettled. Hope had had sexual partners, okay, only two, but still, this was off-the-scales by comparison.
“You think.”
He blew out a frustrated breath, and she wondered how they had gone from bliss to this in a matter of minutes.
“Look, just go. You’re probably freaked out because you just had sex with someone who doesn’t know a Prada bag from a grocery sack.”
“That’s insulting.”
“But true.” Hope climbed off the bed. “It’s been a tough day, what with this Jay business and then Mikey’s grandmother. Let’s put this down to momentary insanity and forget it.”
“Can you?”
“What?” Hope looked at him, and refused to acknowledge how hot he looked all mussed and riled.
“Forget what we just shared?”
“Of course,” she lied, turning away so he couldn’t tell. “Just like you do with every notch on your bedpost.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
